Styrene cladding

[Space Garbageman]

I've seen a number of builds that involve bonding thin styrene sheet over sculpts of wood or foam, with the purpose of building up panels or providing a surface for scribing or for gluing additional details. My question: what's the best way to bond the styrene sheet to the surface? I'm going to assume CA of some kind, but I don't know what application technique to use. Could I just smear it onto the back of the styrene and then attach? Or would it be better to flow it around the edges of the panel somehow? How would I go about clamping or holding the styrene in place while applying the CA, especially on curved surfaces? I'm eager to learn some new methods...

[Kekker]

CA reacts badly with some foams.

5-min epoxy might be a better bet for that.

Kev

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

You can buy "foam safe" CA.... Not sure where, and I have
never used it...

On wood frames, I typically tack the panels in place.
weld the seam if possible, and then run CA into the
frame/styrene joint from the back side. If a window has
to be put in place later, you can't just flood the joint.
But on solid panels glue application from the back side
can be a bit liberal.



http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attachme ... tid=522530

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attachme ... id=1407151

[DennisH]

Depending on the application and how difficult it might be, you could rubber band it in place, hit it with a heat gun to get it to conform to the pattern to retain the shape and use contact cement (maybe water based if the styrene is really thin).

Just a thought. Probably too much effort required though.




Dennis