Dr. Tortenkopf is making Terminators great again

Before actually using the pieces I had cut from the plastic trays I glued some electrical wiring and and plastic tubing to the bases using regular super glue. My plan was to have these stick out from under the plastic on the sides to give the impression of plumbing and wiring.

Next I covered the free area of around the wires and tubes with styro-foam glue. Regular super glue dissolves styro-foam and similar materials. That is why a special kind of glue is required when working with foam. This glue is a bit special in that you have to cover only the non styro-foam side of the joint in a thick layer of glue and wait for about 10 minutes until it is dry to the touch. You then press the foam onto the glue and it immediately bonds, leaving almost no margin for error.

I had previously cut fitting pieces of insulation foam which I glued into the spaces.

The insulation foam’s trade name is styrodur and sheets of two square meters can be bought at construction material wholesale stores. No hardware store I checked was stocking the stuff and I only found it available on euro-palettes online. Even at the wholesale store they looked at me in a funny way when I wanted only a single sheet. That I immediately broke it into two smaller pieces to fit it into my car probably didn’t help the  impression I must have given.

Styrodur is pretty much like regular styro-foam but with no individual bubbles at all, very sturdy and extremely lightweight. On its own it does not crumble at all and can be easily worked with a knife almost like very very soft wood. It is awesome stuff and I have been using it extensively as basing and modelling material as well as just to make paint sticks.

Its intended use is to by cemented  down under ceramic or stone floor tiles as an insulation layer. Hence why it is super sturdy, will last basically forever and has an interesting texture on it, which is intended to make it grip the layer of mortar or cement you are supposed to cover it in. That texture actually offers its own modelling opportunities, which I did not employ in this project.