Cheap or even free 1mm thick plasticard styrene.

Cheap 1mm Styrene

Styrene, it's a word you'll see a lot when you read conversion blogs or see pictures of scratch built wonders.
Normally bought in hobby shops in sheets of about A4 (approx US Letter Size), sometimes referred to as Plasticard.

I have grown to hate cutting up large sheets knowing full well that later on I will want large pieces normally for some Ork gubbins and will have to go buy fresh, no matter how many offcuts I save I still end up doing it.

Free Styrene.

Mmm freee stuff.

Then the missus got into Gardening, well I say gardening, every summer she seems to go into a plant buying frenzy. These are duly planted into the garden and during the following year are eaten, dug up or just plain peed to death by our three dogs.
It was whilst clearing away the debris ready for the next years cycle of this I noticed all the labels for the deceased plants were styrene.

So start hunting round the garden ( your Mums, Grandparents etc ) for all those discarded labels or ask if they throw them away and could they save them up for you.

Cheap Styrene.



Not got a gardening friend or member of the family? Not all is lost you can buy cheap enough Plant Labels if you look around, just make sure they are styrene by avoiding and Rot Proof ones they will normally be a oily feeling type of plastic that will not take to gluing in any form, even superglue.

Using your Cheap Styrene.

If you are buying blank writable Plant Labels then you can treat it just as you would a sheet you have bought from a Hobby store.

Notes on Printed and Recycled Styrene use.

Using the recycled Printed Plant Labels is pretty much as straight forward as using new, but for the sake of completeness I will mention a few of things worth bearing in mind.

Always wash the recovered labels well, as well as the obvious compost and dirt that will be on it you never know what Pesticides and other substances might have been sprayed over it.

The print, if covering large areas can interfere with gluing a little, super glue will stick to the ink and can pull it off the surface of the styrene meaning stuff under any load stress can pull apart, liquid poly will dissolve the ink though. That said a quick rub with a bit of Emery Paper (Wet n Dry) will sort the separation issue.

The print can show through a bit if you are someone who uses very thin paint layers and washes, so another reason for a quick sand off with a bit of Emery Paper.

Free Styrene in action...

Great for Chaos trim on tanks.

Honest, I do use it for non chaos stuff.

Uses for left over Green Stuff.

Some thing I nearly always find myself doing is mixing up more Kneadatite (Green Stuff) than I need.

I used to just stuff it under the bases of whatever mini I was working on at the time but then I had a better idea.

Many WHFB and 40K Armies have little things that appear on a lot of the minis through out the force, tiny, insignificant, fiddly little things that in enough quantity help make the theme. Nurgle = pox/boils, Tomb Kings = Scarab Beetles, Orks( Orcs& Goblins) = little toad stools. There are more I'm sure but those are some I have experienced myself. There is also the more generic little teeth, horns, medallions, symbols and gem etc that adorn GW minis.

Never waste a bit of GS again, use it to make pre fab bits for these details. ( If you are impatient like myself these will help speed up some of these details without the dreaded moment when you squish a bit you just finished while working on the next.


Things you'll need:
Good sharp knife, Blu/White tac ( poster stuff) Kneadatite ( GS/Green Stuff), an old paint brush and thin liquid polyester glue. Oh and a little box or pot for storage.

For this I'll just show the simplest use, but with a little extra effort and variation of shape you can fit this for most armies.

lil Green Balls.

 Whenever left with some GS roll it into little balls, normally I just do this lightly in the palm of my hand with a finger tip. ( Hey Granny, I'm gonna tell you how to suck an egg!) drop em into an out of the way place or a storage pot and forget them til they are set and you are working on a model that you can use them for.



 Ok you built up a store of lil green balls, time to grab that rattly container and use them up. In this example Nurgle themes, boils, pox call em what you want, there is loads of places you can use them.
Sometimes perfect spheres are usable but something with a flat back is easier to glue in place.

Squidge a line of Blue Tac and place the ball you want to use on it.

 

Grab your sharp knife and carefully cut them in half.

Now you have a selection of pustules to glue on to whatever it is needs a dose of Papa Nurgles love. I Use Liquid Poly in small dabs to glue them on and then a brush to coat them with a bit more Liquid poly to seal them in place better. ( Hence the choice of thin.)

Ovals for Insect eyes.

Pustules

 

Eyes

Rivets,Gems and Eyes

 With extra GS you can add more detail or drill little holes whatever you need and take it as far as you want.
Got a tube making tool, make tubes, vary the shapes around and build up a stock of useful forms to glue and use later on for your Army.

Here is a game of spot the lil Green Balls.........

3 lil green balls.

1 lil green ball

5 lil green balls

That game got boring fast din't it lol. But you get the point, why wait for hundreds of little GSed details to cure so an item is safe for attack of the impatient sausage fingers when you can use up wastage to pre prep them and just wait for glue to dry instead?