Kristal Klear for wingtip nav lights

[DaveN351]

Hi!

I'm not sure how basic a question this really is, so please bear with me...

I'm getting to the end of, I think, a relatively successful exercise in making the Airfix Halifax Mk III look reasonable. But the penultimate task, just before rigging the radio aerials could wreck the whole thing: chopping into the wingtips to make the nav lights.

My plan is to put a small blob of the appropriate colour in the excess I've cut, building the lens with Kristal Klear. But I've never used it to make a curved surface, until now just using it for windows and as an adhesive.

Am I being too ambitious to hope to get it to replicate the curve of the leading edge of the wingtip? Is it possible to build it up on a "let it dry, then add a bit more" basis? Can it be sanded or cut without losing its clarity?

I'm in the process of experimenting with a mock-up wingtip but if anyone can add their experience or wisdom I'd be really grateful.

Thanks in advance 

Edited February 28, 2024 by DaveN351

[Mark Harmsworth]

An alternative method would be:

- make the cut in the wing tip

- use a piece of clear sprue glued into that (probably using CA glue for strength

- sand and polish the clear sprue until it matches the wingtip

 

As an extra you could drill a small hole into the back of the clear sprue (where it is to be attached to the wingtip) and fill that with red or green paint.

 

This works.

 

The difficulty with pva or white glue is that it cannot be sanded or polished to shape. 

 

Good luck

Mark

[DaveN351]

Thanks Mark. Sounds like a great alternative. 👍

[Eric Mc]

British aircraft of that era tended to have small coloured bulbs mounted behind clear perspex covers - so they didn't have red or geen coloured light covers in the wingtips.

 

They are a bit of a pain to replicate in small scales i.e, 1/72 or smaller. I tend to cut out the wing tip section, let in a small block of clear styrene held in place by strong super glue. Once cured, you can sand the styrene block to match the wingtip contours and then polish. The problem is that it is very easy to dislodge the glued in styrene during the sanding and polosihing process - which is very annoying. In 1/72 I don't bother trying to drill out an aperture for the green (I prefer blue to be honest) starboard bulb and the red port bulb.

 

As this method involves fairly vigourous sanding and polishing, I usually do this early in the construction process and well before main painting.

[Work In Progress]

I generally go with gluing in a piece of clear sprue too. But if you do want to go down the route of making it out of glue (which is basically what Krystal Klear is), I would not use KK. For things like that I use two-pack clear epoxy adhesive . I would cut the little section out, drill in a little hole so I can inset a piece of fine wire or stretched sprue painted to represent the bulb, stick a piece of foil tape underneath, dob on the epoxy, let it set, peel off the tape, give it a day or so to go properly hard then file/sand/polish. Also makes good small cabin windows if you tape over the outside and fill from inside. 

[dogsbody]

I used some old clear sprue on my Airfix Hurricane. I drilled small holes and put a drop of Tamiya Clear Red and Green in the hole. 

Superglued those to the cut-out wingtips, then carefully filled and polished to shape. A coat of Future restored the clarity.

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

[TheKinksFan]

7 hours ago, Eric Mc said:

The problem is that it is very easy to dislodge the glued in styrene during the sanding and polosihing process - which is very annoying.

Have you tried VMS Flexy 5K CA? The bond is flexible, so it will grip really hard, so I don't think the clear styrene part would accidentally get dislodged.

[Eric Mc]

Simple answer is, no I haven't. The next question is, is VMS Flexy available in the UK?

[ckw]

On 17/03/2024 at 13:15, Eric Mc said:

The problem is that it is very easy to dislodge the glued in styrene during the sanding and polosihing process - which is very annoying.

I do this for my 1/72 models and use Gorilla super glue. I leave it 24 hours to ensure full strength and have not had any dislodge. But to be safe I sand/file on the horizontal plane, never on the vertical plane as I think (maybe wrongly) that this would put more strain on the joint.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[Hunker]

Just to be different, I use Tamiya extra thin. I try it on the same clear sprue first to see if it will fog, sand two sides flat, drill a small hole and put some paint in with the end of a toothpick, then cut off a piece and glue it to the cutout in the wing. Use an nipper to cut around the join to remove excess then sand to shape. Admittedly I've only done this on two models but it's worked fine on both. 

[TheKinksFan]

3 hours ago, Eric Mc said:

Simple answer is, no I haven't. The next question is, is VMS Flexy available in the UK?

At least emodels and scale model shed seem to have VMS products, might be others too.

 

edit.

Emodels didn't have CA glues, but scale model shed does.

Edited March 18, 2024 by TheKinksFan

[Eric Mc]

I'll keep an eye out for it.

[Circloy]

You seem to be sorted but for the record Krystal clear would NOT be suitable to produce this style of marker lights.

 

Being a PVA type liquid it shrinks as it sets, this is fine for windows* where there is all around support. For wing tip marker lights, where there in no all around support, the best that could be achieved is a blob which, due to its nature could not be worked into shape or polished to the required clarity.

 

* Aside from the meniscus at the edges Krystal clear will only produce flat windows.