Using corrugated plastic for a small bench

[Biased turkey]

That kind of very light material used for signs 1/8 or 1/4 thick ( I think some moving boxes are made out of that material too ) seems quite strong for a small layout ( 3' x 4' for example ).
The sheets could be glued on a grid made out of that same material.

What do you think ?
What glue should I use for gluing corrugated plastic ?
Tia for any opinion and/or sarcasm

 

[MasonJar]

Are you talking about building benchwork from it?

It is quite strong like corrugated cardboard, but the strength is in compression parallel to the corrugations. This could make ti strong for things like legs (if engineered properly) but would not be good to lay like a tabletop. I would guess that it would simply fold along one of the corrugations if used like that.

If you want to do some experiments, I'd try epoxy, hot glue, or plastic friendly contact cement. If you've had elections recently, chances are you can find some of this stuff relatively cheap to experiment with...

Let us know what you find out!

Andrew

 

[Biased turkey]

Yes, I would like to build a small benchwork from it.
By the way, aren't the Woodland scenics layouts made using that same material ?
From what I've heard in the news at Radio Canada yesterday, we should have some federal general elections on february 15th. That'll give me enough raw material to build an empire basement layout.
About the glue, as you said I,ll have to experiment.

 

[jeffrey-wimberl]

Tried it and it doesn't work well. Don't waste your time on it.

 

[Russ Bellinis]

I think the only way to make it work for a table top is to cut a bunch of strips an inch or more wide and make a "honey comb" grid that would then have sheets of the corrugation glued on each side. It would probably work, but I don't know about long term durability.

 

[Biased turkey]

First, I want to thank both of you who took some of their time to reply.
To Russ : Yes, that exactly what I have in mind, to make a frome , add joists to get a grid then cover 1 side with a sheet of the corrugation.
That corrugated plastic is used for making moving boxes so it must be strong enough to support a small layout.

To jeffrey-wimberl : I'm sorry you didn't succeed . Could you please elaborate a little about what went wrong. glue problem ? structural failure ?