The Little World

Don’t roll over – Strike back.

Firstly, don’t panic. Nothing that you can do to a plastic model kit will kill anyone or bankrupt you. You can lay the worst result down in the rubbish bin, walk away from it, and go with new knowledge that could not be got any other way. It’s like carrying a cat by the tail.

If it is not so o’erweening as to end up in the bin, there are any number of things that you can do to return from the trouble:

a. Wipe off the paint with isopropyl alcohol and go again. It may not be the pristine result you had in mind initially, but you will get a reasonable finish.

b. Undo the parts. If your fuselage is wonky and your wings wrong, go to the seams and knife them apart. Your re-assembly will need sprue filler, but a lot less of it than the original bad joint.

c. Choose another variant. Some of the short-run kits have several sets of major parts. Now is the time to bring them in and get back to the design.

d. Sand down the mistake and repaint. The real thing probably was refinished repeatedly anyway.