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How the hell do you cut it so straight! i have a ruler and cutting mat with lines etc etc which i follow when cut. but the thicker cards are a pain in the ass.

and while i have you here. Bending plastic card any tricks'n tips? tried the hot water to soften it.

It's hard to cut perfectly straight, but the trick is hold your ruler there and put a thin slit in it, don't try and cut all the way though.

With a thin slit, you can then bend the plasticard and it'll snap along the line you've scribed, BUT, for thick pieces it rarely breaks straight. If I need a really straight line I'll just keep going back over the line I've scribed until I'm most the way through.

Use a junior hacksaw?

I score the line and snap it if I can't cut through on one pass.

Shaping can be done with hot water to soften the plastic and cold water to SET the curve.

This chariot body was shaped from 1mm plasticard sheet and 1x3mm strip.


I needed a chariot body that would allow me to swap out the second crewman for a character if I wanted to do that. Which meant extending the bodywork - and rebuilding the thing from scratch was easier.

I use a flame (from a lighter) to soften it, but you have to be careful because it does melt easily, but it does set it good and proper when you do it right.

Hot water might get you there but obviously I'm just lazy

For cutting it straight, have you tried scissors? It's simple but effective!

 Paradigm wrote:
For cutting it straight, have you tried scissors? It's simple but effective!

I use scissors mainly when I'm being lazy and don't actually care about a straight line, I go for the knives or scriber when I do care about a straight line.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's hard to cut perfectly straight, but the trick is hold your ruler there and put a thin slit in it, don't try and cut all the way though.

With a thin slit, you can then bend the plasticard and it'll snap along the line you've scribed, BUT, for thick pieces it rarely breaks straight. If I need a really straight line I'll just keep going back over the line I've scribed until I'm most the way through.

This.

For bending, curving, warm it up EVENLY. A hairdryer works pretty well as does hot water or a pan of salt or sand, and pull it over a curve (a round body cylinder or something works) of appropriate size. The softer the plastic is when you pull the curve, the less it'll spring back.

http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/74091scriber2/index.htm

It scores out a little channel that's v-shaped at the bottom, which means a slight 'step' in the edge of the plasticard if and when it's snapped; but that's just about the only problem. It really does dig through thick plasticard easily and smoothly.
Each pass of the tool needs a lot less pressure than even a sharp knife, which is especially useful when you're trying to cut the initial guide groove without your hand wobbling off to one side. You can concentrate more on pressing it against the ruler than pressing it into the plastic.

been useing the trace and snap, and since im converting mostly ork things with plastic cards i dont rly mind it beeing curvy. but want to start building stuff for my marines aswell. Working on a chimera trukk/loota wagon for my Bloodaxes atm http://imgur.com/mcW1Itu. also sporting a magnetized ard case with a rotating killakannon ( man turrets are a pain to make when you can cut straight!)

Also tried useing scissors but meh.. might have to invest in a more heavy duty scissor, since the one i have is a bit flimsy
hairdryer that sounds like a good idia!
and cold water after hot water? il have to give that a go, btw that chariot body looks nice ! might have to make some chariots for my Dark elfs :3
Plastic Scriber il have to have a look around and see if i can get one, not a very hobby friendly city i live in T_T dont even have a local hobby shop!

Cheers for all the help guys! time to save some bucks on a home made bastion!

It doesn't work as well as the Tamiya scriber, but you can snip the end off a scalpel blade to create a tool that you can use for scribing, that's how I did the panel lines on this fella...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/586903-.html?m=2

But yeah, if you want a straight line you just need to do more passes with lighter pressure.

Another trick is to roughly cut a small amount larger than you actually need (say ~1mm or so). Then use a ruler and a knife to cut the line you actually want. Because there'll only be ~1mm worth of material to remove, it will cleave a lot more easily (when you try and cut through a panel, the material far away from the cut is essentially pressing on the sides of the knife, making it harder to cut, if you are only having to remove ~1mm of material, the material will just bend instead of pressing against the knife, making it much easier to cut, if you try it you'll notice the bit you trim off curls up as you trim it because it's being bent away from the knife).

HOWEVER, I've only tried that trick with thinner panels, I don't know how well it works for really thick panels (1.5mm and up). I simply haven't had the need to cut any real thick panels lately so I haven't tried it.

Lots of good advice already. As mentioned, for thicker card don't try to cut through it all at once - score it a few times with a ruler and then slowly bend until it snaps off.

Another thing I do is run the edges over a piece of fine grit sandpaper. Instead of rubbing the sand paper over the plastic-card, run the plastic-card over the sand paper. Make sure to keep the pressure even. After you are satisfied with the straightness, buff it with a piece of smooth emery board (not what you use to get your nails filed down, but the side that buffs them).

But most of all, Orks wouldn't know what a straight line is, anyway lol. Don't fret over it too much.