Profil 0,25 x 0,75 mm

A thin strip of 0.25 by 0.75 mm

The finest category of rectangular profile made in polystyrene. A cross-section of a quarter of a millimeter by three quarters of a millimeter corresponds in 1:72 scale to a batten of roughly two by five centimeters, and in 1:35 scale to a small strip about a centimeter across. That is exactly why builders of aircraft and ships look for it, where strips have to disappear under the paint.

Typical uses: frames of windows and doors, the edgings of hatches, fine stiffeners under skinning, deck edgings, railings, strips over riveted joints or suggesting sheet-metal joints on a fuselage. It also serves as a spacer when a part needs to be packed out by a few tenths of a millimeter and nothing thinner is at hand.

Working with the profile

The material is flexible enough to be bent around the curve of a fuselage or around a circular hatch without heating. Cut it into short pieces with a sharp knife on a cutting mat, not with scissors, which squash the end into a wedge. For a series of equal lengths, stick a stop strip onto the mat.

It is glued with a thin modeling cement: place the strip, press it with tweezers and let the cement flow into the seam with a brush along the edge. Once it is dry the edges can be sanded away to nothing, so that the profile looks like part of a molded piece. Degrease the surface before painting, as molded styrene tends to be greasy from production.

A small tip on storage: profiles of this gauge tangle and break easily in a box. Keep them standing upright in a tall bag, or make a tube from a paper roll and mark the dimension on it, because the difference between neighboring widths cannot be told by eye alone.