This study presents a toolbox for the prediction of birefringence and craze initiation stress in oriented monodisperse linear amorphous polymers. The toolbox is assembled from a previously proposed meltsolid constitutive model that provides the necessary residual stress components required for predictions of birefringence and craze initiation stress. The LikhtmanMcLeish theory for linear rheology of entangled polymers is used to generate the low reduced frequency part of the linear viscoelastic spectrum, the only molar mass-dependent input parameter. All other parameters are obtained by experiment or from literature and can be considered material constants. Toolbox predictions are compared to new experimental data on two grades of linear monodisperse polystyrene (PS) of known molar mass but unknown rheology and to literature data. The toolbox is able to account for the role of molar mass on birefringence and craze initiation stress of PS subjected to supraentanglement orientation processes. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2012