You wrote:
The big concern about plastics is that we have no idea of their "life".I have written before on thid subject ... but I think it bears repeating.
I have a piece of Lucite that's 20 years old and as brittle as glass (the plasticizer has evaporated).
The only place where plastic is KNOWN to survive forever is in the trash! :-}
Build however you want, but be aware that modern materials may not last!I didn't disagree that there are "Certain" plastics that would probably be acceptable.
However, this discussion had primarily been about those plastics that modelers are likely to use, and which are available in the plastic kits and from hobby shops. Ed.
At one point in my life I was with a large professional industrial model and exhibit company for fifteen years, with a ship model in the shop now and then. One of the basic materials we used was Rohm & Hass, cast acrylic sheet, tube and rod stock. Note I say "cast" acrylic, which machines very easily, can be solvent welded, drilled and tapped for mechanical assembly, and requires no prep work prior to final painting ( as wood does ), and was normally sprayed lacquer finished. The acrylic plastic you buy at the local glass shop is usually extruded acrylic; i.e. the type that melts when you run it through a circular saw ... stay away from extruded acrylic stock!
Go to your local industrial plastic supplier, or a local Plastic Fabricator [look in Yellow Pages] and ask for cast acrylic material. The Plastic Fabricator probably has a bin full of scrap that you can buy from ... mine does!
What I am saying, is that the use of cast acrylic material in ship modeling should be in your model makers bag of tricks. An example might be fabricating a mooring bit, or the base casting for a large mooring or cargo winch. Just use your imagination! In many cases you can substitute it for brass.
I have some spare model fittings in my tool box that are over fifty years old, and were fabricated from cast acrylic and have solvent welded joints ... they look like the day they were made !! I also have a unfinished British Trawler with a wooden poplar hull, with cast acrylic stem, keel and stern post bonded on with acrylic scraps dissolved in solvent. This hull has been around for over fifty years, and for the past 39 years has been in my barn loft, suffering the yearly cycle of New Hampshire temperature changes ... the joints are still sound!
I am not sure I can positively answer the question of the longevity of cast
acrylic plastic; but my present examples of it's longevity seem to say for the
average hobbyist modeler ... do not worry about it. As I say; "Just add the
material to your bag of modeling tricks!"
{Art Herrick}
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