Choosing scenery materials

[sw1]

I'm needing to get some form of hard wearing and square material to base scenery on that's light.

I've tried cutting big sheets of thick plasticard square and it's rather difficult to keep things straight and 90* corners which is one of the main requirements when making modular parts. In comparison to thin plasticard you can just score and flex.

I originally thought about wood but it gets heavy very quickly.

Any ideas?

My only other thought was layering several sheets of plasticard together.

[Brassaxe]

What sort of area are you looking for? The corrugated plastic used for 'House for sale' signs are reasonably stiff and lightweight, supermarket 'special offer' signs might be another source which are often thrown away - of course, you might have to wait for them to be made redundant (although asking around at estate agents and/or supermarkets might yield results).

If you're looking at making rooms then expanded ally sheets used (normally with body filler or glass fibre) for repairing dents/bridging holes would give a stiffish base for areas up to about 12" square. Hardboard would be a bit heavier but a lot stronger.

If you go to a builders yard they might have sheets of heavy duty wire mesh with 1" squares used for reinforcing concrete - probably need an angle grinder to cut it with but it is easy to keep square . 

[paladin7221]

How about pink insulation foam with wooden battens glued onto the sides to keep the corners sharp and stiff?

[sw1]

Some good ideas there and I'll try some of them out. I might also try some form of hard edging with foam board in the centre a bit like the tile I did for the GWS scenery a while ago.

[pete]

A good, light material is foamed PVC. It is the stuff that is used to make shop signs and the like so it's waterproof and won't warp very easily. To look at it is kind of like foamboard but there is no paper coating on it as the whole sheet is one piece. It's relatively easy to cut, much easier than plasticard or wood of a similar thickness and it comes in sheets from 1mm to 18mm thick. I normally use 3.5mm and 5mm as this can still be cut with a scalpel, go much thicker and you're in to Stanley knife territory. Superglue sticks it really well, to the point you won't shift the joint afterwards. I think it's old name was "Foamlux", you'll get it from a signmaker or display company and it is quite cheap too. Just make sure that you don't get normal unfoamed PVC, it's chemically the same but it's the stuff that window frames are made from and you won't cut that without a bandsaw or something.

[sw1]

Cheers Pete!!! Managed to snag some signs work was chucking out. I think it's the foamed PVC stuff. I'll be trying out chopping it up and using it this week.

[pete]

Well done, borrowing stuff is much better than buying it! I forgot to say to watch the dust if you sand it, it really hurts if it gets in your eyes and up your nose but it doesn't hang in the air, it's more likely to come off your hands or something.