What Is An Alternative Of Polymer?
I Am in Grade 7, and Doing a project on making a building that is Earthquake Generator Resistant. In Case you didn’t know, And earthquake Generator is Just a Piece of Wood, Attached to a base, and when you pull & Release, it Vibrates, Like an Earthquake.
Well; I Found a Website, that has a virtual experience. It They use Polymer Foundation, instead of Concrete. Well, I went to a Craft Store, And Polymer, is like $3 for a 2 1/2 X 2 1/2 Square. And That’s WAY to Expensive, Consider We Need it to be 10 in’ by 10 in’ and 3 Stories High.
So My Question is; What is an Alternative For Polymer?
We Thought The Following:
1. Plasticine
2. Play-Doh
Which Do you Think Will Work Best, And An Alternative.
And If You Have And other Tips and suggestions, It Would be VERY much appreciated. Thank You. This means alot.
Suggested Reading:
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Both Plasticine and Play-Doh will be a good substitute, I would suggest making your own Play-Doh, there are a gob for recipes on the web.
Could you refer us to the website, please? A polymer is a chemical that is made of multiple “units” linked together. Starch, for instance, is a glucose polymer. Lycra is a polyurethane polymer. Nylon is a diamine/dicarboxylic acid polymer. Cotton is another glucose polymer.
The “polymer” you seem to be talking about in a craft store is probably a polymeric clay. Whether or not this is suitable to make a foundation of a scale building, I can’t really judge. If you provide a website for the item you’re trying to copy, we may be able to make a better suggestion.
I think you’re referring to “polymer clay” (brands like Sculpey, Fimo, Premo, etc.). Those must be baked to harden so not especially suitable for large things unless you really know a lot about polymer clay.
(Also, the cheapest polymer clay can be purchased in a *2 lb box*, usually on the bottom shelf near the small bars of polymer clay and usually in white but also in terracotta-color… it’s called original Sculpey… it’s rigid when baked but can break more easily than other lines of polymer clay.)
You said your bldg. needs to be 10″ x 10″ and 3 stories high, but it’s impossible to tell how high that would work out to be since a “building” could have 5 rooms per floor or 100 rooms per floor.
At any rate, I’d assume that you could just use cardboard, or better “foam-core board,” or something like that for the structure, and glue the pieces together. If you wanted to have some kind of clay on the outside of the board, you could “cover” the outside of them with various kinds of air-dry clay (I wouldn’t use plasticine though since it will never harden).
It would be pretty hard to make anything very large that has thin “walls” using only clay (without an “armature” underneath it).
The cheapest air-dry clay would be either salt dough clay or paper pulp (either of which you’d make at home) which could work kind of like a clay for this purpose. Bread clay is even better but would cost a bit more and wouldn’t be as easy to make a lot at one time.
salt dough clay
http://www.google.com/search?q=salt+dough
bread clay
http://www.google.com/search?q=bread+clay
There’s something cheap though you could buy at Michaels that would perhaps work even better just for covering foam core board or wire mesh, etc..it’s called Celluclay (gray or white). It’s basically a large bag of dry paper pulp that you’d add water to at home (and perhaps a bit of white glue) which could then be used as a clay… it does dry with a somewhat rough/bumpy surface but it can be sanded down if you really needed, then painted or not.
“Play Doh” is the brand name for the cheapest kind of kids “clay”… it is air dry, but it often cracks while drying so probably wouldn’t be as good as other clays.
If you want to give more details about exactly what you’re trying to build, and what would be done “to it” during the project, etc. (and especially a linkt to the online project you found), you might get better answers though.
HTH,
Diane B.
P.S. The different clays would give different amounts of strength, britttleness, etc. so that would affect the results if it were shaken.
P.P.S. You might want to check out this page at my site on making buildings, houses, and other “structures” … it has to do mostly with using polymer clay, but you still might find the basic techniques and options helpful.
http://glassattic.com/polymer/houses_structures_gingerbread.htm
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