Shrinky Dinks

[TheChronicOne]

Anyone tried using this stuff to make custom parts?  You can only make things that are flat, but, you can always make multiple "sides" of an object to glue together into a 3 dimensional shape. Otherwise, this stuff would be PERFECT for things like wings and control surfaces, etc.  Just gotta sand it into the appropriate "ovalish" shape or whatever. I imagine if one "looped" bits together somehow and/or with clever manipulation of the material before baking, rounded shapes could be achieved.

This stuff comes as a thin plastic sheet about the thickness of good printer paper stock. You can draw a design on it... you can make an outline or straight up paint it, then cut it out, and throw it on a baking sheet to "bake" and the stuff then reduces in size. The thickness increases, however, to a perfect thickness for scratch building on models! It's plastic, so it'll weld well with regular modeling glue (I THINK, speculating here).


After baking.


Before and after.



There's a lot of potential here and the next time I'm at the LHS I'll grab a blank sheet to play with. I've actually made shrinky dinks before when I was a child, it's really easy and I made some pretty neat stuff back in the day.

Imagine, though...... something as easy to draw on and cut as paper, that turns into the thickness of about a US quarter and into firm plastic that is receptive to paint and gluing.........   Imagine those of us with less than stellar eyesight or shaky hands (I have great eyesight but my hands shake some times after a bunch of coffee or working all day! ).  You can create macro version of a part in good detail, because of course it's easier to detail something LARGE(r), then shrink it down to size whilst retaining that vital detail!

Anyway... I was thinking about this earlier and it "hit me" so I thought you all might want to hear about it, too.   

Brad

[Captain Canada]

Interesting concept !

At first I thought you were talking about Mark McGrath's original band, the Shrinky Dinx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Ray

Rock on 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEdk_Vtgy-s

[TheChronicOne]

Interesting concept !

At first I thought you were talking about Mark McGrath's original band, the Shrinky Dinx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Ray

Rock on 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEdk_Vtgy-s

LOL!!  I didn't know about that. And.... B.B.W.!!         Rock on, indeed!!!! 

[TheChronicOne]

Oops, got distracted by the BBW (lol)... finishing my thoughts:   

"Interesting concept."  Yeah, Cap'n.  I thought so, too. 


Yes! I can't wait to get a hold of some and make some wings or something with it. I know for a fact I'm missing some propeller blades, so, I can whip some of those up... etc..

I want to "do the math."  I'll lay out some definite lengths... ya know... a 4 inch wide piece, 10mm wide piece, etc, then shrink them down to ascertain the ratio of size shrinkage or whatever it should be called..   I want to get to the point where I can say, "A 1/48 spitfire wing would be such and such length before shrinking."   

Thanks for the interest, CC. You always find time to check out my stuff and I appreciate it.   

[Captain Canada]

Keep us posted ! I'm going to look around the dollar store see if they have any.

[TheChronicOne]

Anyone tried using this stuff to make custom parts?  You can only make things that are flat, but, you can always make multiple "sides" of an object to glue together into a 3 dimensional shape.

Sounds like slow motion manual 3D printing.

I'm always on the lookout for non modelling items to use, could be fun to see what can be done with it.

Lol!!   That's a good way of thinking about it.   

[The Rat]

I thought you were talking about what happens to most of us when we get cold...

[TheChronicOne]

I thought you were talking about what happens to most of us when we get cold...

[NARSES2]

I thought you were talking about what happens to most of us when we get cold...

I thought Canadian's would be immune ? 

[Captain Canada]

I thought you were talking about what happens to most of us when we get cold...

LOL I feel another Seinfeld quote coming on. Funny how all the truly funny stuff you remember from the show was always George Costanza