Reinforcing Styrene

This likely has an answer that is escaping my google-fu this evening, but after about 2 hours of research and mixed responses reading through similar questions on various sites, I'm throwing in the towel and asking for help!

Some quick back story; at work we had 6 excess sheets of 6' x 4' styrene, about the thickness of two credit cards stacked on top of each other. We were using it for back drops in a display we constructed, and when I saw how resistant it was to damage I got the okay to take the excess sheets home.

I will be using them to build a ROTJ helmet following the WOF templates, but am concerned about the flexibility of the styrene. Do any of you have recommendations for how I should reinforce it? I've looked into fiberglass resin, but am concerned about the heat damaging the material. Any recommendations, or tips, are greatly appreciated.

most anything you use that heats up is going to destroy the shape....

That's my big concern here. Do you have any recommendations for a cold cure resin? Or an alternative to resin/fiberglass?


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I have used fiberglass to re-enforce styrene, but I put my pieces in jigs to hold the styrene in place. I have had no issue with warping. If your fiber glass is getting really hot, you may be putting in too much hardener. With my back plate, i screwed it in place on wood and put in a thin layer of fiber glass, avoiding covering the screws. Once it set, I removed the screws and added more fiberglass. I recommend looking at Rafal Fetts templates, I think they are all much more accurate. The fiberglass seems to grab to the styrene pretty good, but I shot some super glue into all the edges.