Topic: Recycling old used sprue

[Yara]

Hi all,

As my army continues to grow, so does the corresponding pile of empty sprues. I'm just curious as to what people do with theirs - it seems an awful waste just to throw it away...does anybody know of any way if can be recycled? Is it like plastic packaging, or is too different to be put in with that sort of thing?

Normally I'd try to use it in other modelling projects, but there's just so much of the stuff I can't ever see myself getting through it all!

Cheers,

Yara

[Shadowwolf]

I use to cut of the GAMES WORKSHOP AND SO ON... letters from the sprue to use in modeling projects. It looks very nice if done correctly
The sprue itself is not very useful, I think. It can be used as basic construction frame, but I think balsa wood is better for that. The bits gets cut of and saved in my bits box. It is a little messier than keeping it on the sprue, but it so much handier and easier to store.

Shadowwolf

[patsy02]

Chuck em in an old style manual meat grinder, you get excellent and quick rubble.
Or, you cut them in equally sized bits and stack them, makes for great brick walls.

[Wyzer1]

I was always wondering something, maybe someone else could tell me if a: it will work, and b:if its "safe"

Could you potentially make a mold, I don't know what would be the best to make it out of (I was hoping of doing wood and lining it with something, like tinfoil or whatever. I was going to do it on a cnc machine and try and make something worthwhile (otherwise a jigsaw making a square shape would be cool)

Then taking the plastic sprues and melting them (stove top?) and pouring it into the mold? Does that work? It sounds feasable to me, but I have never tried it before

[Soju]

I use it for all sorts of things... support struts for big miniatures are good - like tank hulls where the joins are slightly iffy. I usually slap on some on the insides to ensure they don't 'fold in'. So if you happen to bust open a tank of mine, it will be a spider maze of sprues holding up the sides and the top lol.

Rubbles, rocks, debris... another good source.

Actual mini-scale struts and fences.

Wouldn't recommend melting them though... the fumes alone are so... bad to say the least.
But I don't fully understand the science behind plastic ... so I just recommend not doing it. You'll get arrested for being a look-alike P-Lab.

sj

[Empireguard]

Well you can use them for this (this is from my Zoo Diary)

you will need some old sprues, tooth pics, a pinvice and some rubber bands







then cut if all the little sticky out bits so it looks like this



once you have 2 done attach them with sticky tape or rubber bands and drill holes as such you need to do this or they may not line up



then place the tooth pics in the into the holes as such and glue



once that is dry cut of one side of the tooth pics and glue to base I used super glue and PVA



once you have done that repeat as nessary I only did 3 sides to mine as I wanted a brick fence out of Das on a sheet of plastic like so



then I attached it to the model and made some more brick work on the back



then just to finish it of placed the cut of tooth pic bits on top of the brick wall and super glued them as well



well there you go I hope this give you some Ideas

[Otaku]

@ Wyzer1

I think the plastic burns before it melts enough to use in a mold.

[BK]

...I think the plastic burns before it melts enough to use in a mold...

Not if carefuly heated, but fumes are realy bad for your health so I would not recomend it.

[Stolzeuhu]

I heated some parts of gw plastic minis (like knees to make model crouching without cutting or using gs), and for few seconds (as it was getting colder) the heated part was very sticky - so maybe with some patiece someone could heat the sprues and make solid glue from them?

[Phydox]

Make some spruemail armor?  Those warhammer games can get pretty rough sometimes.

[lilal665]

Out of interest, does anyone know what type of plastic GW uses? I know that in the part of the UK I live in, you can only recycle PET 1 and PET 2 plastics, and I thought it was a terrible waste as I binned 3 carrier bags worth of empty sprue two days ago.... Just clippingthe bits off uses a lot less room in the cupboard though, doesn't it?

Lil

[Alasandril]

Did Gw not recycle old sprues at some point?

I seem to have it in my head that you could take it to GW and they'd recycle it.

I'll need to find out for certain.

[Phydox]

I think at one point people were suggesting to GW to recycle sprues in order to help keep prices down (this may have been around the time of the huge spike in oil prices).  Even suggesting that GW designate drop off places for the sprues.

I think GW may be still laughing at that one.

[Soju]

It'd be an osome idea though... but I think GW plastic is one of them thermosetting plastic that can't be remoulded or whatever without it turning into black, gooey mess.

As I understand it via the wikipedia;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadel_Miniatures

"... although in 1987 Citadel began to produce plastic miniatures as well under the name "Psychostyrene" and "Drastik Plastik". These were made of a harder plastic than other plastic miniatures at time and allowed for greater detailed sculpting."

Interesting eh, they renamed the plastic...

sj

[Sigmork]

You can make chariots:


Carved out of a GW sprue

[steveb]

all of the previous are good uses for old sprue,  i have a few more.  I some times will cut the sprue into 1/2 inch pieces with 45 degree end cuts and then stack them pyramid style, paint them silver or gold and you have a stack on precious metal ingots.  next if you take the sprue and hold it at both ends and slowly spin the piece over a candle flame it will soften, after esperimenting you will learn when to pull it apart slowly to create a thin plastic rod usable as scale bow strings, ropes etc. with a little practice you can give a circular twist to the sprues as you finish pulling them apart and create great rams style horns.    Also the little parts that stick out are the same size as most of the holes in GW items, like wheel hub, shields with hole in the center, the divot in the gun carriage, anything that has a hole is probably the same size as the the little bumpy things.   I thought the fence idea is really neat.  steveb

[thecoldwarrior]

I cant believe it! No one mentioned using sprue as the rim of movement trays. I actually use styrene to do this but Ive cut some sprue to try it out. It will have a nice look to it I think. Also somewhere on the net I say an article about a guy who made mushrooms and corn stalks out of sprue. I tried it and it works pretty good. If anyone here were a Dwarves (shudders ugh) you could make some rather nice rail ways for mines.

I too thought about recycling sprues. I have come to the conclusion that its not really worth it. As for heating sprue plastic, dont breath in the fumes and be careful.