Advice on joining a Revell airliner fuselage together

[Modelling Padre]

Having tried to model a couple of  Revell airliners, I tend to find a partial misaligned seam which when sanded leaves a flat area after sanding which ruins the profile of the model. Any advice on getting a level join?

[ckw]

One thing that can help is to glue a thin strip of sheet styrene on the inside of one side of the fuselage, extended beyond the edge a little so that it forms a ledge for the other side to sit on. But if your sanding is giving you a flat top, I think you may want to refine your technique so that you're sanding to the curve rather than at right angles across the top.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[janneman36]

What you can do is that you glue the upperside first and let it harden and after it hardened you can align the lower part and glue it together..

This way you can a put a bit more force without having to worry that the opposite side shift out of place!

 

cheers, Jan

[Modelling Padre]

Advice greatly appreciated. I have two kits currently on the go so will give it a try.

[Lazy8]

If you do put a strip of plastic inside the join to reinforce it, be aware that the plastic of the two kit fuselage halves is not necessarily precisely the same thickness.  If you don't allow for that, you can actually make things worse using that technique.  That said, it's my preferred way of doing it.  You just need to be careful.

[Dave Swindell]

Another top tip - if the joint isn't lining up correctly when the locating pins are engaged, cut the pins off and re-align the parts correctly.

Also concur with Jan's advice above, align the upper joint first and allow to cure, then do the bottom.

As noted, internal tabs can assist or make the alignment worse, but if you add the tabs and allow to set before test fitting you can remove plastic or add thin plastic card shims under the open end of the tabs to adjust the fit - takes longer but you can adjust the fit to suit.

[Turbofan]

Hi,

If you do find you need to sand the top of the fuselage if you stick, with double sided tape, some wet and dry to the inside of a piece of half tube which is a similar radius as the fuselage you shouldn't get any flat spots. You'll lose any aerials etc. but these can be replaced easily enough later on with thin styrene.

Hope this makes sense and helps out!

Cheers,

Ian

 

[Modelling Padre]

Thanks will try gluing the top half first as suggested.

 

 

Many thanks Simon