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abs strips?


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I just bought styrene from the hobby store and cut it into small piece and used ABS cement. If you have a Hobby Town in your area. That is where I got my styrene.

thats the problem, i live in a small coastal town, no chance of a hobby shop, loads of builders merchants though

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Your best bet may be just to cut up some old household items. Sometimes waste paper baskets, signs, drawer organizers, etc are either ABS or HIPS. You can use All Purpose Cement to adhere them to an ABS Suit. Not the strongest, but might work for what you need.

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Any kind of hardware store will have them. They are just those little plastic signs that say "For Sale" or "keep off the grass" or whatever. Xacto blades cut them very well and plastic welder or epoxy will bond it very well to abs plastic. This is what pretty much everyone I know uses for shims. Just make sure it is a white sign so you will not have to bother with painting it. Hope this helps.

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Any kind of hardware store will have them. They are just those little plastic signs that say "For Sale" or "keep off the grass" or whatever. Xacto blades cut them very well and plastic welder or epoxy will bond it very well to abs plastic. This is what pretty much everyone I know uses for shims. Just make sure it is a white sign so you will not have to bother with painting it. Hope this helps.

hanks very much, i have some signs like that somewhere, like fire door keep shut signs

great idea

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Yeah, those should work fine. If you have to paint them try not to paint the part where the glue or velcro will be. Also it helps to score the plastic with an Xacto blade first before glueing. But just score the parts where the glue will be. "Scoring" means to take an Xacto blade and make lots of little cuts ( NOT VERY DEEP) in both pieces of the plastic that are going to be glued together. A lot of little XXXX patterns will do. This gives the glue something to hold onto and forms a better bond. Also on the inside of your armor where the shims are attaching use some fine grade sandpaper to take the gloss off the abs. This and the scoring makes for a better bond and there is less chance of coming apart during stress. For most people I know we use Devcon plastic welder. It's in the hardware section at Walmart (do you have Walmarts over there?). It's only about $3 (american) per tube and It took me about 6 tubes to do my entire tk outfit.

 

Again, hope this helps.

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Yeah, those should work fine. If you have to paint them try not to paint the part where the glue or velcro will be. Also it helps to score the plastic with an Xacto blade first before glueing. But just score the parts where the glue will be. "Scoring" means to take an Xacto blade and make lots of little cuts ( NOT VERY DEEP) in both pieces of the plastic that are going to be glued together. A lot of little XXXX patterns will do. This gives the glue something to hold onto and forms a better bond. Also on the inside of your armor where the shims are attaching use some fine grade sandpaper to take the gloss off the abs. This and the scoring makes for a better bond and there is less chance of coming apart during stress. For most people I know we use Devcon plastic welder. It's in the hardware section at Walmart (do you have Walmarts over there?). It's only about $3 (american) per tube and It took me about 6 tubes to do my entire tk outfit.

 

Again, hope this helps.

thankyou for your help there darrell, unfortunatly there is no walmarts here in the uk, devcon plastic welder is a glue i take it?

what thickness strips would you recomend? i have 1.5mm here

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Plastic welder is a 2-part epoxy glue that sets up in minutes and actually melts the plastic together. I wouldn't go too thick on the strips. If you put a snap through one like you normally attach a snap (there should be a piece on each side of the plastic), you lost that much surface area (diameter of the snap) for the glue to bond to. If the styrene is thick, it will have a harder time making contact with your suit because of the metal snap piece underneath. Wow this is tough to explain.

 

Another route is to just glue the snap piece (the top part of the bottom) directly to the armor. What you do is rough up the armor with some sandpaper first. I even rough up the bottom of the snap a bit. Then use gel superglue to glue it to the armor. While the glue is still wet, sprinkle baking soda over the entire snap. Really pack it on. The glue will set almost instantly. Blow the powder away and you're done. This may be a weaker method. I've had one snap pop loose doing this quick n' dirty technique. The others appear to be solid.

 

Super glue, Cyanoacrylate, or CA, is not as strong when resisting peeling (peel strength), or twisting or sliding forces (shear strength), but it holds up well when pulling (tensile strength).

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