Techniques and Tips for card stock and foam board modeling

Several years ago I collected a number of card stock kits and began building them...

I used too much white glue in places. I tried to sop up the excess glue to only make things worse. I didn’t spread the glue evenly. I missed gluing corners. My dull X-ACTO knife would leave a ragged edge on both foam board and card stock. None of my walls were the right height. I sometimes found my work had been implemented in differing scales. The white card stock backing would show through on corners and joints. Windows went in upside down. Card stock slipped when I was cutting it – ruining the image. Scoring a fold line was sometimes the same as cutting it. Warping abounded on all my large foam board components. Joining walls sometimes ended up matching at the top but not at the bottom or vice versa. I discovered late in my projects that my next assembly should have preceded my last assembly and I would have to go back and do it all over again. When I discovered Photo Mount Spray I also discovered that I could wash it off most surfaces (desktop, wall, chair) with soap and warm water and thus rescued my marriage.

Having learned from these and various other mistakes at no small cost in card stock paper, toner cartridges, foam board, patience and time; I thought it best to write down what I’ve learned to relieve others from going through the same travails.

I can not take credit for all the techniques listed here. I’ve learned from Carl Stoelzel’s detailed instructions, from Jerry Jensen’s Paper Modeling Guide (which is listed with Dave Graffam’s products), various YouTube vids and others along the way. What I set out here are the techniques and methods which are tried and true for the Pulp Places designs. You are welcome to use other methods should you please. If you come up with anything better than I have offered here, please let me know and I may add it in a later release of this guide.