The Big MATERIALS suggestion Thread

[Brandlin]

I've had quite a few people suggest new Modeling Materials to be used and thought it made sense to group them together in one place.

I'll maintain a list in this thread's original post. If you have ideas of what you would like to see then please post below. If its something that takes my interest then i'll promote it onto the list in this post(and ultimately onto the "Portfolio and Production Process thread")

The criteria for getting on this list are entirely arbitrary and changeable - depends what I like...  

If I make a kit from your suggested material you get a free kit! This may take a while though, be patient.

The requirements for materials are...

- Cylindrical or Curved- A consistent size somewhere between 50mm and 250mm in diameter and above 50mm in height. Maximum height around 300mm or easy to cut accurately. A slight taper to the cylinder is acceptable. Non cylindrical items should exhibit curves, slight tapers or other 'interesting' geometry in an 'organic' style. No double curvatures!
- Cardboard or plastic - plastic should not be of the polyethylene type that even repels superglue, if the plastic feels 'waxy' then its no good. It must be able to be modeled with tools normally available to a war gamer/modeler - ie a scalpel knife, files sand paper clippers.
- Widely available - like the Pringles tube it should be easy to get hold from local supermarkets or other outlets. I'm based in the UK so am initially looking for items available here, though the Pringles Tube is a world wide constant it seems.
- Cheap - again, like the Pringles tube this should either be a container which can be reused or an item that costs no more than £2 to buy. I've considered drain pipes and such like but the problem is most people would have to buy a 6 foot length (or more) in order to get just a few inches, or I'd have to cut and ship it which removes the flat-pack nature.
- Recyclable - Household paint tins have been suggested but the work necessary to clean them up so they could be used for modeling is excessive.
- SAFE


This is what we have so far... in no particular order.

- Pringles^TM tube.
- industrial sized coffee tins
- flower pots (darth tater)
- baby milk tubs (Rick and iron mamoth from terragenesis)
- soft drinks cans (ableman from terragensis)
- food cans
- mailing tubes in various sizes.
- Haagan Daz icecream tub or Ben and Jerry's
- Cart d'Or ice cream tub (Carcharoth)
- Bisto gravy tub.
- soup tubs (jubal)
- spray can lids (carcharoth)

When it come to starting a new design I MAY (at my discretion) put up a poll to see what people would like me to work on next.

[Klute]

From the quick look in my kitchen there seems to be a pretty big range of stuff along the lines of the gravy granules tub. Powdered stuff mainly. Hot chocolate, cheese sauce etc etc.

Do you have the tube dimensions on the kit packaging somewhere ? As well as saying the kit is for a pringles tube for example, putting the dimensions on will be helpfull.


BTW how about those tubes you get tennis balls in ?

[Jubal]

What about going into bottles more? You'd need to cut the bottoms off, but something like a large coke bottle or lemonade bottle could be a  basis for a larger tower and they do cut reasonably easily... dunno about glueing though.

[Rick]

Trouble is, once you cut the ends off the bottle, it loses a lot of its rigidity. Unless you then reverse the ends and glue them back inside. Hmm, have to experiment with that. As to gluing, apparently a hot glue gun is THE way to do it.

[Brandlin]

yeah plastic bottles are waaaaaay too flexible. I tried reinforcing one with a disc of styrene, and its not bad but the sides still flex.

I actually lookd at robinsons squash bottles - the BIG ones like this...


they have an interesting relief pattern on the top curved section - i was considering this for an observatory type structure... but realistically i think its just too big.

as to gluing plastics, i have a hot glue gun and have had disasterous results on coke bottle plastic... with the bottle melting!  for gluing ALL sorts of plastic i strongly recommend this stuff.

[Jubal]

There are also those slightly tapered roundish pots that you get soups in, those are quite common and could make good basic houses or another smaller building. In fact, they're practically the only "common" item I can find around the house, most of our round items are... less normal (and I doubt designs that can use ancient bug-boxes and used arachnid collecting tubes will be apprearing anytime soon. ).

[Brandlin]

hmm soup tubs goes on the list to investigate - thats the kind of thing we need!

[Carcharoth]

Spray can lids? I know you wouldn't want to use the can itself, but the lids could possibly be useful for a small building.

[Brandlin]

can lids were mentioned on fod i think...difficult to glue but a possibility.

after ben and jerry's i think i'll investigate food cans... see if i can't overcome the ridged metal detail... they're tough accurate sized, widely available and perfect for houses in a couple of heights.

[Megatron0]

I have alot of GW paint pots...I'm not sure what can be done with them but iyou might be able to come up with something

[Brandlin]

KFC chicken buckets!

[Emberbreeze]

Big mumma buildings! But are they a standard size?

[Carcharoth]

And can you manage to clean all the grease off 

Excellent idea though for giving a nice big central structure.

[Brandlin]

No idea if they are a standard size, never had a bucket but was driving past IFC last night and it popped into my head!

Big central multilevel, many balconied, intersected added too building structure though!

[Brandlin]

Pride swallowed, bucket bought, stomach braced, bucket emptied, rennies eaten...

Bloody he'll it's big!

Town hall?
Prison?
Warehouse/grain store?
Engineers guild building?
Observatory?
Manor house?

Hmmm...