The Little World

I did not realise that there would be a schedule of maintenance on a plastic model – I thought once it was done, that was it.

Silly me. There is maintenance on anything that you need to continue working – car, marriage, camera, etc. The models are no different.

a. There will be cleaning issues. Unless you seal your newly-completed Spitfire in a glass case and extract all the air, dust will settle on it – even in a glass display cabinet of the conventional type. Open shelf storage is worse – eventually even the slickest fuselage looks like a wooly bear caterpillar.

You need to think of some way of removing the lint at regular intervals – and safely. So far the best rsults have been obtained with a medium camel hair paintbrush and a photographic blower. You stir the stuff up and blow it off.

Tiny vacuum cleaners are tempting, but anything that is tiny enough and gentle enough has no suck anyway.

Washing models is murder, and draws down upon you all the decal-lifting issues that you can imagine.

In some cases you can see the point of the diecast collectors who never take a model out of a commercial cardboard package. Soul-destroying, but neat.

b. Breakages are inevitable. It is hard to dislodge an entire wing but you can snap off a pitot tube by looking at it. This is why my pitots are all eventally going to be replaced by piano wire superglued into the wings.

Reglue as needed. Consider that if something busted once, it can bust twice – use stronger glue the second time.

c. Ungluing is probably not a word, but it is a fact of modeller’s life. Some plastics fool you into thinking that they are bonded but pop apart at the first change of temperature. In the case of the wildcat mixtures, you may need to go past the conventional solvent cements and get cyano acrylates and urethane glues. If your model resists the normal stuff you might as well try everything else – it is tough enough to take it.

d. Were you foolish enough to include something on your model that needed a battery installed somewhere? Wait until it runs out of charge or leaks and then think what you are going to do. Besides run around and scream, I mean.

e. Resist the temptation to take apart something that was good enough then to make it better now. You won’t. Build another with your new skills and knowledge and then put that one on display.

f. Decals lifting? Did you not put them on well the first time? No bonding agent or top coat? Go shopping for a set of new aftermarket decals and redo the business. This time buy the setting solution and spray the top coat.

g. Canopy clouding up? Did you put it on with cyanoacrylate cement? The out-gassing and frosting of perspex with cyanoacrylates was one thing that the glue industry never told us about. Perhaps they did not realise it would happen when the CA glues were the new wünderprodukt . Well that was the 1970’s and we know now. If you can snap off the canopy and polish it clear again, well and good. If not, take it as a lesson. And take the time and trouble to go out and stab a glue salesman.

I have read that coating a canopy in floor polish obviates this frosting. No idea whether this is true.

h. Wasn’t that a novelty to get real rubber tyres with your model kit? And had you forgotten all the perished rubber tyres on the Dinky Toy modles of your childhood? Why I’ll bet there’s a Czech aftermarket part maker who has a packet of tyres for you for only 56 Euros. Aren’t you lucky…