What's a good way to bend styrene tubes and cylinders?
- Thread starter Sulla
- Start date
trekprops.de
Well-Known Member
Another trick is to fill plastic tubes with sand and then heat them up with a hair dryer or a heat gun. The sand will enable the tubes to keep their original diameter when they're bent so they won't deform.
superjedi
Sr Member
Depending on the diameter of the tube/rod for your model, another option is just using plastic-coated wire, or even just plain wire. I've used that green floral wire for a couple of projects. For small diameters, this can be a lot easier than using plain styrene.
It's available pretty readily, and doesn't require any special techniques or anything to bend. Once it's on the model and painted, you can't tell the difference anyway.
Example below. On my scratchbuilt Falcon, all those little "conduits" with any kind of bend in them started out as green floral wire. I bent them by eye with a couple pairs of small tweezers, and used superglue to attach them.
It's available pretty readily, and doesn't require any special techniques or anything to bend. Once it's on the model and painted, you can't tell the difference anyway.
Example below. On my scratchbuilt Falcon, all those little "conduits" with any kind of bend in them started out as green floral wire. I bent them by eye with a couple pairs of small tweezers, and used superglue to attach them.
Smiling Demon
Sr Member
Yeah, when you use plastic coated wire or even bare wire it looks like little conduit pipes running everywhere. Gives a real good effect!!
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