The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

Here is my collection of poor sad aircraft that have fallen victim to toddlers, moving house ormy wife's cleaning predations.

I need to be soundly harassed encouraged to return them to their former glory. They sit there looking accusing.....

Sopwith Snipe, once the pride of my biplane collection. Billy Barker's mount. Lost it's rudder and has sagging monofilament rigging. Not to mention dusty as all hell. How to dust it without damaging decals?....

Potez flying boat from old Splashbau. Lost its wingtip floats and once again a kilogram of dust. Cleaning these things is one of the biggest impediments to resurrecting them...

I dust my models with a soft household paintbrush- works a treat and does not damage the model.

David.

lancfan wrote:I dust my models with a soft household paintbrush- works a treat and does not damage the model.

David.

This dust is really seriously caked on though. They've become dusty then slightly damp in some cases, sticking the dust on like mud

Assuming everything's properly sealed with a sealing coat of some description, there should be no issue leaving them in a bowl of soapy water and cleaning them with a toothbrush. Be sure to put the plug in the basin though...just in case.
You could also de-rig the Snipe and then re-rig, post wash.

Regards,
Bruce

I don't think any of these are sealed - Ionly discovered Klear after these. I'll try adamp tissue andhopefor the best....

The most tragic case, the horribly vandalised Vickers Vandal. Courtesy of an 18 month old.



In its former glory:



It's so brutally damaged it's really hard to motivate myself to resurrect it

Remove that rigging for starters! It'll look less of a mess.

Given your penchant for scratching, , I'm surprised you haven't yet acquired a stock of generic decals; roundels and such like. Now might be the time?

Regards,
Bruce

Now that I've watched your rigging tutorial it feels a lot more manageable if I can get hold of some aeroclub thread.

With insignias, I don't tend to do military very much and when I do it's OOB so never had the call for spares of that sort. What I really need is a good set of generic civil lettering, which I'll hunt down presently. I probably haven't least one set of rounders in case the Snipe goes south.

True "Aeroclub" thread is far less available than it used to be, but James found a substitute somewhere and posted the info on the Forum...somewhere
It is an elastic thread and may be available, as such, in haberdashery stores and/or sewing/knitting outlets.

Regards,
Bruce

Hah! Found it...

JamesPerrin wrote:The stuff I got from Aeroclub is the stuff you can get from haberdashers, it's called knitting in elastic by Gold Zack. I think John has had different sources of this over the years and they vary in thickness, I think mine is a tad thicker than yours Bruce.

MerlinJones wrote:Hah! Found it...

JamesPerrin wrote:The stuff I got from Aeroclub is the stuff you can get from haberdashers, it's called knitting in elastic by Gold Zack. I think John has had different sources of this over the years and they vary in thickness, I think mine is a tad thicker than yours Bruce.

Thanks! I vaguely recalled either that discussion or an earlier similar one. I'm off to find some. Much obliged!

And if you think a little one can do damage;
http://uamf.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=5039;

Ok, so the Snipe has finally been cleaned and repaired. Less difficult than I anticipated. Now back to its former glory.

http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums/y48 ... 933503.jpg;

http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums/y48 ... 1935e1.jpg;