Warbird Information Exchange

Need to air some frustration on a modeling issue. Feel free to ignore.

I recently returned to the hobby after about a 12 year hiatus (college, starting a career, etc.) and am building an OA-4M Skyhawk. I just completed decaling and clear coating it and, despite a lot of "learning experiences," it was starting to look pretty nice.

This morning, I glued in the exhaust. Fit perfectly in the rear fuselage, no pressure at all anywhere on any of the joints, looked good. I turn the model over tonight to glue on the arrestor hook and discover that the bottom seam of the fuselage has split from the exhaust forward almost all of the way to the rear wing root. Thankfully, it didn't pull totally apart. The best I can figure is that the glue from the exhaust assembly somehow softened and weakened the fuselage joint (which was originally glued with Tamiya liquid cement).

I'm pretty disgusted by it and am attempting to salvage things with gap-filling super glue and clamps. I guess I'll either have to fix the seam somehow and very carefully re-spray paint and clear coat, or just chuck it. Both seem like reasonable options at this point. Pretty demoralizing when I was nearly finished.

Anyway, I just had to vent.

Happy modeling.

Tough to do a respray after decals. It's on the bottom of the fuselage, which is mostly out of sight. I'd probably brush paint the seam. I've come to embrace brush painting as another tool in the chest, which I always avoided in the past.

She's looking good btw.

mazdaP5 wrote:Tough to do a respray after decals. It's on the bottom of the fuselage, which is mostly out of sight. I'd probably brush paint the seam. I've come to embrace brush painting as another tool in the chest, which I always avoided in the past.

She's looking good btw.

Thanks! I'm considering brush painting, but I'm going to see what it looks like when I get the mess cleaned up. I think I can dial my airbrush pattern tight enough to just overpaint the area without overspray and there are no decals in the immediate area.

It's still been a fun project and I think I can still make it look ok.

Got the seam fixed and getting close to completion! It's been a rather difficult project due to issues with the kit and my own inexperience, but I'm pretty happy with it overall. It's fun to be doing this again and I'm excited to apply some of the lessons I've learned to my next kit.

Won't be long until it's done!

Finally finished it! I'm pretty happy with the result, all things considered.

That looks fantastic!!!

aeroeng

Thanks!

Yeo, definitely be proud, it turned out well.

Looks good