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Warped wing


Filler

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I spent last night trying to sort out a droopy wing on a TR-1. It's the 48th scale Italeri kit, so a lot of long thin wing. Pretty sure it was straight at first. I've been building it for years and made a bit more effort to get on with it late this summer. I suspect it may have got caught in the hot sun we had a few weeks back and drooped.

 

Last night I attacked it with a hair dryer and tried to clamp two bars along it whilst still warm and them plunged it into a cold bath. I had a quick look this morning and I'm not sure it's helped much.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions or is it just a sad fact that it can't be undone?

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  • 3 months later...
On 30/09/2021 at 08:23, Filler said:

I spent last night trying to sort out a droopy wing on a TR-1. It's the 48th scale Italeri kit, so a lot of long thin wing. Pretty sure it was straight at first. I've been building it for years and made a bit more effort to get on with it late this summer. I suspect it may have got caught in the hot sun we had a few weeks back and drooped.

 

Last night I attacked it with a hair dryer and tried to clamp two bars along it whilst still warm and them plunged it into a cold bath. I had a quick look this morning and I'm not sure it's helped much.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions or is it just a sad fact that it can't be undone?

I'm not sure if age makes the problem harder to fix but I had two Zvezda 767's and both port fuselage halves were dreadfully warped. I heated some water until I could only just put my fingers in dunked the fuselage halves waited then manipulated them back into shape after several attempts. However the Zvezda plastic is ultra soft and pliable, I'm not sure if Italeri is the same.

 

I've never liked the hairdryer method as I've heard some people have ended up melting the plastic rather than fixing it. My best bet would be a hot water method and just press it along a flat surface until it conforms.

 

Best of luck and I hope the hot water method works for you.

 

Cheers,

Mark

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  • 3 months later...

I've had good results with a slightly more laborious setup. Translating it to your TR-1:

 

- find a way to support the fuselage in an inverted attitude, a sort of a jig

- load the wing(s) with something relative heavy so they will bend down (actually up, if the model was not inverted)

- heat the desired part of the wing with a hairdryer, for such a time and temperature that the wing *slowly* sags to the desired position. Leave the hairdryer on for say 15 minutes, then check. You will have to unload the wing to check what's happened. And maybe heat another part of the wing, to spread (or eliminate) the curvature.

- If you can measure the model's temperature, even better, you'll have more control. I'm guessing to need 60 to 70 C to make things happen with polystyrene. You can control that by the distance, or maybe a setting on the hairdryer.

 

Quite a lot of work, and some experimenting is required, but I think it can be done, without damage to the model.


Rob

Edited by Rob de Bie
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