What would be a good range of styrene sheet thicknesses and when do you use one thickness over another?
99% of the sheet styrene I buy and use is the plastic “For Sale”-type signs… I never bother with remembering thicknesses for strip… Just “some of this” and “Some of that”… If what I have on hand is too thin, I laminate it…
I like to keep a nice assortment of most sizes but “For Sale” signs are a great cheap source. I’m lucky because I get free 1/8" thick styrene sheet from work.
Before laying out a wad of cash for sheets of styrene look around to see what free styrene you have access to. I’ve got a ton of those phony credit cards the card companies send in their mailers trying to lure you. Many are styrene.
Some companies use sheet stryrene for packaging inserts.
Throwing away old electronics? Check’em for pieces parts for modeling, including styrene. In some radios I have found a sheet of clear as well as colored stryrene as a backing to a dial.
It depends on what your going to be using it for. Visit the hardware store and check their For Sale signs, many are thin styrene stock. Looking for thicker, check out one of those graphic sign shops, many have access to styrene for the signs they make for their customers…ask if you can acquire the scrap pieces.
0.05 and up to an 1/8 inch is what I keep in stock.
Another alternative is to locate a plastic supplier in your area if you can’t find something specific enough for your uses from sources described above. You can buy sheets and shapes of styrene and other plastics of varying thicknessess and sizes for much cheaper than the overpriced commercial modeling plastic manufacturers (i.e. Evergreen). This also has the added benefit of being able to physically examine the material before buying to get an idea of what the various thicknessess are like.
As for using one thickness over another, it pretty much depends on what you’re doing. To get an idea of thickness, credit cards are about 0.20 thick. I use 0.10 thick stock for replicating aircraft canopies for example. Anything else you might use it for is limited only by your imagination.