Model Making Materials

Foamed PVC 'Palight'

Foamed PVC 'Palight' or Foamex is a specialist rigid sheet material that is an incredibly versatile model making material that lends itself to sketch modelling and a wide range of scratch building projects.

• Sheet size: 301 x 603mm - smaller A4 sheets available below.
• Sheet thickness: various (see drop down box).
• Palight is very strong and durable without being excessively heavy.
• Palight is lighter than sheet styrene yet more robust than foamboard.
• Palight is waterproof and more warp-resistant than foamboard.
• 1.0 & 2.0mm Palight can be easily cut with a scalpel, 3.0mm is a little trickier to cut.
• Can be sanded or carved and can also be inscribed or even embossed to create different surface textures (see our Modelmaking Guide).
• Palight can be painted without any danger of warping (though it will usually require priming first).
• It is not affected by heat (within reason) from strong lights making it an ideal material to make larger scale sets for stop motion animation.
• Palight is best glued with superglue, which gives it a very strong bond. We recommend Zap-a-gap (or the medium equivalent) which is thin enough to spread on the surface and not create a gap when sandwiched. It also has the benefit of filling the gaps (if any) when adding detailing strip etc.
• Our information sheet 'Working with foamed PVC' by David Neat, details 3 projects using Palight (see our Modelmaking guides).

Applications include: Stop motion animation sets, theatre design modelling, architectural model detail, scratch building RC body shells and wargaming scenery.