How much BMF gets tossed?

[Fanof69]

I'm just about done with my first sheet of BMF and ordered some more today. But I got to thinking about how much of that sheet ended up in the trash. I know it's the nature of the product and there's really no way around it, but I bet about 1/3 of it got thrown out. Maybe more.

[Fat Brian]

That's about average if not a bit better. Unless you're covering really big areas with it most of it will end up as trimmings. I try to be economical with my pieces and use as small a piece as possible to cover an area to mitigate waste but losing some is the nature of the product.

[Snake45]

If you only trashed one third I'd say you did pretty well. My own guess would have been more like two thirds, or maybe more (counting do-overs). And that's not even counting "bad areas" of a sheet or entire sheets that are no good.

[Art Anderson]

Call me stingy, call me old-fashioned, call me penurious, but I tend to use probably 98% of each sheet of BMF that I buy.  It's not rocket science, but a bit of planning with such a material goes a long, long way.

Art

[JTalmage]

If you're me, you think it looks fantastic on the site of the AMT display case trailer, then you accidentally bend it and fill it full of wrinkles... only to have just wasted half of a sheet. Oops.

[Petetrucker07]

I'd say that's about right. I try to be smart with what I use. I now waste at most a third. I don't want to chance ordering BMF and have it shipped. To easy for it to get damaged, maybe I'm over thinkin that part. But where I buy my BMF is either over an hour away at Pegasus or in Arizona at Hobby Depot when I'm out that way. So I can't just go get more and be back on the project in a few minutes.

[StevenGuthmiller]

Just guessing, I would say about half, or possibly quite a bit more ends up as waste.

Just take for instance, one side spear on a given body.

Most of us will cut that piece a minimum of twice as wide as the trim you are covering just to get at least half as wide as the trim on either side so you have some space to work with.

That right there is 50% waste.

Or consider something like a script.

Way over half of that will wind up in the trash can.

There's really no way around it unless you can some how figure out a way to pre-cut your pieces almost exactly, & then good luck getting them on right.

 

Steve

[bbowser]

Call me stingy, call me old-fashioned, call me penurious, but I tend to use probably 98% of each sheet of BMF that I buy.  It's not rocket science, but a bit of planning with such a material goes a long, long way.

Art

Waste not, want not I was always told.  I try to be stingy but sometimes it backfires.

[Harry P.]

Just guessing, I would say about half, or possibly quite a bit more ends up as waste.

Just take for instance, one side spear on a given body.

Most of us will cut that piece a minimum of twice as wide as the trim you are covering just to get at least half as wide as the trim on either side so you have some space to work with.

That right there is 50% waste.

Or consider something like a script.

Way over half of that will wind up in the trash can.

There's really no way around it unless you can some how figure out a way to pre-cut your pieces almost exactly, & then good luck getting them on right.

 

Steve

I agree.

Given the price of the stuff, I do try to cut pieces as accurately (and as small) as possible to cover the area I want to cover, but it's very hard to cut a piece without at least some waste. I'd guess half a sheet winding up being waste is about right.

[Harry P.]

Call me stingy, call me old-fashioned, call me penurious, but I tend to use probably 98% of each sheet of BMF that I buy.

I find that impossible to believe. Even if you cut precise areas of foil for each application, like for curved wheel arches, for example, you still wind up with odd sections of foil on the sheet between the sections you've cut and used. And if you are clever enough to plan ahead so precisely that you can also use the pieces between the pieces, there's still no way you're using 98% of the sheet.

[StevenGuthmiller]

I find that impossible to believe. Even if you cut precise areas of foil for each application, like for curved wheel arches, for example, you still wind up with odd sections of foil on the sheet between the sections you've cut and used. And if you are clever enough to plan ahead so precisely that you can also use the pieces between the pieces, there's still no way you're using 98% of the sheet.

I agree.

I use almost 100% of every sheet of foil I use as well, but that doesn't mean that a large percentage of it doesn't go into the can.

Remember, every piece you remove from the body after cutting around your trim is pure waste.

 

Steve

[Harry Joy]

I use most every bit of each sheet. It just takes a little planning. And I toss all the usable bits in a small envelope to use later. When I cut a big piece to do a large curved section, so much of it ends up pulled off the backing sheet, I stick the trimming to the edge of my desk and use them for other parts of the kit during the same build session.

[Maindrian Pace]

I have a collection of scrap bits for the really small stuff and "touch ups". I hardly toss any of it.

[Helix]

Pretty sure I used just over half a sheet when I built the AMT '59 El Camino 

[Deathgoblin]

I use probably about 75%.  I do end up throwing a bit away from where I've trimmed pieces off, but I try to reuse the smaller pieces.

[Lunajammer]

I've gotten pretty good with precuts, especially where long lengths are concerned, so my waste has dropped quite a bit. If I come up short on a precut I stick it back onto the sheet for later. I estimate I waste 25-percent, but that might be optimistic bias. I just know I haven't bought a sheet for a few years.

[Roadrunner]

I'm finding that a good amount goes directly into the trash, but it's the nature of the process, I guess.

[Russell C]

Call me stingy, call me old-fashioned, call me penurious, but I tend to use probably 98% of each sheet of BMF that I buy. .....

Myself as well. As I said in a prior thread about shelf life, I have three sheets dating from the late 1970s. But in my case, I don't do acres of '50s chrome trim, it was all mostly small stuff, door handles, scripts, small trim, etc.. Here's the three shets, the top one is what I'd shown before with the 1980 Chiquita banana label. The bottom one shows how I used some of it for the paint masks on my Lambo Flambé.

[Tom Geiger]

Think of BMF like tile work, sheetrocking or wall to wall carpeting.  You always order something like 30% over what you need because there will be a lot of waste.  I remember sheetrocking with my father. He'd save every little scrap and piece it together with a lot of seams just not to waste product. Then he'd spend a lot of time spackling and sanding and it still looked like doo doo. The last house I gutted, I hired a sheetrock crew.  I watched them work and they moved fast. They would slap up a whole sheet and then cut out the window in the middle. The piece they pulled out hit the floor. The professionals see time as worth more than cheap materials. They wanted the minimum of seams to spackle. Less time and a better job.  There's a moral in this story.

As far as BMF, it's only 8 frickin dollars a sheet!  Steve estimated he gets 3-4 cars from a sheet, and above this he admits having a lot of waste.  So figure it's $2-3 a car? What's the squawking?  

Personally, I concentrate on getting the very best result on the model. I don't care how much foil ends up in the can! 

[StevenGuthmiller]

Think of BMF like tile work, sheetrocking or wall to wall carpeting.  You always order something like 30% over what you need because there will be a lot of waste.  I remember sheetrocking with my father. He'd save every little scrap and piece it together with a lot of seams just not to waste product. Then he'd spend a lot of time spackling and sanding and it still looked like doo doo. The last house I gutted, I hired a sheetrock crew.  I watched them work and they moved fast. They would slap up a whole sheet and then cut out the window in the middle. The piece they pulled out hit the floor. The professionals see time as worth more than cheap materials. They wanted the minimum of seams to spackle. Less time and a better job.  There's a moral in this story.

As far as BMF, it's only 8 frickin dollars a sheet!  Steve estimated he gets 3-4 cars from a sheet, and above this he admits having a lot of waste.  So figure it's $2-3 a car? What's the squawking?  

Personally, I concentrate on getting the very best result on the model. I don't care how much foil ends up in the can! 

I can relate to your analogy Tom.

I was a drywall sub-contractor for over 25 years.

Did mostly taping with some occasional sheet rocking.

You're correct. Sheet rockers don't worry too much about waste.

Partially because time is money & partially because they wouldn't have a job for long if they pieced everything together.

Tapers are very particular about how many seams there are to finish & contractors would rather spend a little extra on wasted material than a whole bunch more on the tapers labor!

 

Steve

 

[DeeCee]

I don't waste a lot anymore, i trim the BMF as close to the size of the trim that i am doing, but practice is about the only way of getting wastage down.

[StevenGuthmiller]

Think of BMF like tile work, sheetrocking or wall to wall carpeting.  You always order something like 30% over what you need because there will be a lot of waste.  I remember sheetrocking with my father. He'd save every little scrap and piece it together with a lot of seams just not to waste product. Then he'd spend a lot of time spackling and sanding and it still looked like doo doo. The last house I gutted, I hired a sheetrock crew.  I watched them work and they moved fast. They would slap up a whole sheet and then cut out the window in the middle. The piece they pulled out hit the floor. The professionals see time as worth more than cheap materials. They wanted the minimum of seams to spackle. Less time and a better job.  There's a moral in this story.

As far as BMF, it's only 8 frickin dollars a sheet!  Steve estimated he gets 3-4 cars from a sheet, and above this he admits having a lot of waste.  So figure it's $2-3 a car? What's the squawking?  

Personally, I concentrate on getting the very best result on the model. I don't care how much foil ends up in the can! 

Again, I have to agree with Tom.

Seems that people have no problem spending $10.00 on a can of Tamiya primer, but they can't abide spending $8.00 on a sheet of foil every few months.

I look at it from the perspective that I spend as much money on one jar of paint to paint one kit, as I spend on a sheet of foil that will do several.

In other words, I don't worry about waste.

 

Steve

[Danno]

I find that impossible to believe. Even if you cut precise areas of foil for each application, like for curved wheel arches, for example, you still wind up with odd sections of foil on the sheet between the sections you've cut and used. And if you are clever enough to plan ahead so precisely that you can also use the pieces between the pieces, there's still no way you're using 98% of the sheet.

To quote one of our most infamous presidentes always said, "It all depends on what your definition of 'use' is."   

 

 

[Aaronw]

Pretty sure I used just over half a sheet when I built the AMT '59 El Camino 

I've been doing the trim on a '59 El Camino for a good 8 years now, half a sheet suggests you've been very frugal with it.   

 

Wow that thing has a lot of chrome, every time I think I'm done I find more  . 

[Roadrunner]

Pretty sure I used just over half a sheet when I built the AMT '59 El Camino 

I'm not sure if this makes me happy or not. The '59 El Camino (with camper) is a grail project for me, and my foiling abilities at this time, really suck.