Does anybody have any suggestions for sanding wing roots that are slightly misaligned/been puttied, so as not to destroy detail. same question applied to leading edges of wings. thank you.

Hi there godfather,

the job's a bit of a chore however you slice it, but I usually use Tamiya masking tape either side of the wing-root or leading edge join, as close as possible to the puttied/misaligned area, before I start sanding. This theoretically minimises damage to surrounding detail by the sandpaper, though I find I usually have to replace the tape a few times before the job's finished, as it wears down pretty fast.

Then I re-scribe any lost detail using dymo-tape as a guide, before polishing the whole lot up with a nail-buffer equivalent to check for any remaining blemishes that need more work. It's not a perfect solution, but it works OK for me. Any other suggestions? I'm happy to try something new as well!

cheers Brad

I make a sanding stick or two (with different grits of paper). I use a coffe stir stick and glue the paper to it. I use wooden sticks - easy to cut and shape. I cut the tip to a sharp corner and sand away being very careful not to sand away raise details. It's slow and teadious, but ifyou don't want to redo the detail that's the only way.

I cut the stick often to keep it sharp and focused.

If all you have is a gap, then don't sand at all.

if there is a large gap, do the following steps:

1. squeeze the white contour putty from Testors into the gap. Goop plenty on to fill the seam to a fair depth.

2. wrap your finger in a paper towel, dip the tip in some isopropyl alcohol (I use the 91% strength) so that the paper towel is damp but not dripping.

3. The alcohol acts as a thinner for the putty, so work the putty you just put on with the alcohol finger, both pressing more putty into the seam and wiping off excess in the surrounding area. Be sure not to wipe the seam too much though - you want the putty to still be overfilling the seam at this point because the putty is going to shrink as it dries

4. Let the putty dry, then use a Q-tip cotton swab that has been dipped in alcohol to clean off the reamining puttty, and rub the seam enough to create a shallow tench out of the former gap. White putty is too course to look good under paint, so we want room for something better

5. with an old paintbrush, apply Gunze Sangyo Mr. Surfacer (a thin lacquer based putty, available thru online hobby shops if your local one does not carry it) to what remains of the gap. Let is dry (it will shrink) and apply another coat. You don't have to worry too much about how precisely it is applied, but the brush will allow you to put it on fairly accurately.

6. again, get a Q-tip dipped in alcohol and clean off the excess Mr Surfacer. More scrubbing will be required that with the white putty, but this is good since you want to control how much you leave on/in the actual seam you are trying to fill. Note that you could use laquer thinnner in this step, but the Mr. surfacer will be stripped off faster and so you will have less control over how much you are taking off. And isoproyl alcohol is less dangerous to you chemically.

7. let dry again, then go back and clean off the residue with some quick swipes from a paper towel damp with more alcohol.

Smaller gaps only require steps 5-7.

Mr. Surfacer leaves a good surface to paint on. removing it this way does not damage details, though you may have to scrub surrounding panel lines a bit to make sure they don't get clogged.

As for the steps in the wing roots - well this technique can help with that if it is a small step - you'll just wind up creating a small ramp of filler on one side.

Larger height offsets should be corrected as part of your build though. Test fit the wing to the fuselage before gluing the wings together. If the wing is too thick for the wing root, then sand the lower to upper mating surfaces of the wing near the wing root until it fits without a step. If the wing is too thin, add some shims made of plastic card or strip to the same surfaces to make it the right height. Most of the material added or removed from the wing should be at the leading edge unless you have thick trailing edges to work with (in which case you want to thin them anyway, but not add).

Cleaning up a modified leading edge of a wing because you added shims is FAR easier than sanding a wing root and is about 100 times easier to make invisible once paint is on. Getting the wing root right should be your priority.

It takes a little practice to get this technique down, but once you do, wing roots will (almost) never bother you again.

thanks for all the suggestions.

"filing gaps made easy" by LAMPIE in beginners forum might interest you? I find this no sanding method to work great, I am not the best at this hobby yet however I think this method works great! with no loss of detail, what do you guys think? no detail loss really appeals to me putty applied then theexcess removed with q-tips dipped in acetone, then use mr surfacer? I am going to try that..thanks