[scudbong]

I am preparing a 1/24 car for Dunkerque and I am using for the first ever time a vacform body shell. The body is made by True Scale and is a repop of the Russkit Iso Grifo. Being a beginner with the sort of thing I was bound to make a mistake! I was making the holes for mounting the body, I'm using dress making pins which slide into brass tubes which are soldered to the chassis. I had to make 4 holes, 3 of the 4 are fine but the 4th is too big! I used to much pressure with my Dremel and ended up making a hole which is far too big for the pin head. It measures 3mm, I've since relocated the brass tube and made a new hole for the 4th pin, but I'm left with a hole I don't want.

My initial thought was to paint the car then fill afterwards and hand paint the filled part and then put a roundel over the top (it is just below the door). Has anyone else got a better idea?

Thanks,

Pete

 

[Bigtone]

You could paint the body and stick some self adhesive lexan behind the hole and then fill the hole with another piece of self adhesive lexan from the front. Then touch up the paint from the inside. The self adhesive lexan is available from AB Slotsport or SCD

 

[stoner]

hy, you needn,t have drilled the extra hole, you could have used pin hole strengthening strip[or nylon strapping tape] on the inside of the body and redrilled the pin hole smaller. as it is, take big t,s advise its sound. john

 

[roblees]

Also next time just use a sharp pin to make the pinholes, Dremels are too powerful. Back the pinholes with cloth tape, strapping tape or a sequin.

 

[dgersh]

Where do you guys see the self-adhesive lexan on ABSlotsport site? Can't find it... and I'm repairing a Russkit Porsche Carrera body!

Don

 

[truescale]

I'd be glad to send you a couple more bodies if that would help. Send me your current address and I'll get them mailed.
TSP policy is these "replacement" bodies are free!

Regards,
Victor

 

[scudbong]

Thanks for all the helpful responses and excellent advice, wish I knew it all before but as usual hindsight is a wonderful thing! I knew I'd make a mistake somewhere along the line, hopefully this will be the only one and I suppose it's all a learning curve....

I can't really picture the tape, won't it look a bit scruffy if attached to the outside of the body? Or does it go on very smoothly so you can't see the edges?

I've been giving this some thought myself and I might try painting the body from the inside first and then glue a backing piece behind the hole. I'll then fill it with resin and hand paint from the outside, I've used resin as a filler in the past and had excellent results. I intend to do a few test runs first but the resin won't react with the plastic will it?

QUOTE I'd be glad to send you a couple more bodies if that would help. Send me your current address and I'll get them mailed.
TSP policy is these "replacement" bodies are free!

Victor, that is extremely generous but I won't take you up on your offer thanks. I'm pretty sure and determined to rectify this one. And I really don't fancy trimming another set of wheel arches, the ones on this one took me ages!

Thanks again for all the advice, any other ideas please let me know, I'm on holiday for a week from tomorrow so won't be trying the resin one until I'm back.

Pete

 

[Bigtone]

Link for AB Slotsport, what you want is at the bottom of the page. http://www.abslotsport.biz/page18.html
Link for SCD http://www.abslotsport.biz/page18.html

 

[roblees]

Trimming wheel arches: trim very roughly with a small pair of scissors, then use your dremel with the sanding drum on a slow/medium speed to sand away the edges of the rough hole up to the marked line. Sand or trim off any remaining 'flash' created by the process. If the wheelarches are too small to get the drum in without snagging, use the slightly smaller drum grinding wheel to get started.

Cockpits are the same - carefully make a rough hole in the middle of the opening then open out with sanding or grinding drums.

This produces good results very quickly, and also reduces the risk of the wheelarches cracking, as the grinding produces a smooth edge.

You can do this before or after painting the body.

 

[tedm]

I always use a pin vice to drill holes with-it's much more controllable. Try using nail varnish to fill the hole.
TED...

 

[janj86]

i always use dremel to work bodies wheel wells ,, i made a very long Pin hole maker to be able to control punching holes , warm the body by holding it between fingers for a few seconds before punch ..