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How do you safely bend styreen plastic card without haveing it brake or crack?

Use a thinner thickness or alternately use the same method people use for shaping resin. put the sheet in warm/hot water it should make it more pliable.

You could try lightly scoring it too.

Warm water (hot enough for you to put your hand in without burning it - NOT boiling) or a hair dryer on high.

If you are shaping it AROUND a curve, try to have that curve under the piece you are doing.

Hot water! how did i not think of that^^ tried useing my propane burner...eeh... yeah.. dident work that well. thanks guys.

oh where do you buy your plastic cards,rods,beams etc etc? sofar iv been doing it on Ebay,but winged a lot of the rods's size

 Hereticdave wrote:
You could try lightly scoring it too.

uh. No. Scoring it is what you do to add a fault to the material specifically so that when you bend it, it snaps there. Do not under any circumstance score plasticard unless you intend for it to be cut or to snap there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Phoenixmaster wrote:
Hot water! how did i not think of that^^ tried useing my propane burner...eeh... yeah.. dident work that well. thanks guys.

oh where do you buy your plastic cards,rods,beams etc etc? sofar iv been doing it on Ebay,but winged a lot of the rods's size

1.) Plastruct
2.) Evergreen plastics (I think that's what they're called?)

Do not buy buy from evergreen. It's way more expensive than plastruct...
Before ordering online, look aroudn for hobby stores. They will usually have plasticard and mixed assortment of stuff including wee brass tubes and the like. If not, look again for miniature train shops. After that point, you should be fine orderign from plastruct. My only reason to advise against plastruct is... oh decisions decisions, and all the possibilities.

I guess plasticard is made originally in a roll or something, because when you put it in hot water it can really curl up. So get ready with something to attach it to with the same curvature as you want, otherwise it might be too curvy, or not enough depending on how long you heat it!

Yeah, Evergreen has tons of great stuff as far as plasticard goes.

http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/

Evergreen, iv been on that site a few times, but due to shipping cost and very slow restocking i went to ebay^^ . they do however have a very good selection and a good way of showing scale........................god i hate shipping fees... and toll...ugh...