How the heck? ...fuselage seams

There are two ways of dealing with the seam. If, after filling and rubbing down, there is a still a very fine seam line, then fill it with the sludge from the buttom of an enamel paint tin. Let it dry and rub down with a fine grade of wet-and-dry. In the seam is slightly wider, run a very thin line of Superglue down the seam. When it is dry, rub down again, but this will take a bit more work than with the enamel paint.

Don't forget to rescribe the transerse panel lines where they have been lost. Oh, and as an afterthought, check your references. Some aircraft were actually built in halves and so have a real panel line in that position.

i glue and align half the fuselage at a time. top, the bottom. or use putty, a flexi file or a hammer.

Check this link:

If you are lucky, the seam does not need leveling, only filling. That is, there is no bump, just a slight crack. Then you merely apply putty in the crack, sand, and prime.

However, usually you need to level the seam. This occurs because the two pieces do not fit precisely at the same level and leave a little step. I scrape seams that need leveling, by drawing an Xacto knife along the seam with the blade held at 90 degrees. This dulls the blade quickly, so I keep a second handle on my bench with an old blade I only use for scraping..

Then I go to the putty, although sometimes the scaping gives a good enough surface that primer fills the residual crack. I use a very full bodied primer with a lot of filler in it (Krylon).

When you glue it together, wait a moment for the glue to soften the plastic, then firmly squeeze the parts together so that a bit of glue & plastic oozes out of the seam. Wait for it to harden before you trim & sand it flush. The seam should be a lot less noticeable.

If you didn't align the halves perfectly, you'll have to use putty to smooth out the transition. You can apply masking tape first to protect areas you don't want touched by putty. Find something you can use as a spatula to spread the putty. When it's hard, remove the tape and sand it flush.

Whether you used putty or not, the next step is to apply a coat of sandable primer or filling primer. It will fill any remaining hairline gaps, not to mention the pinhole bubbles in the surface of the putty. When it's dry and hard, wet-sand with very fine sandpaper. If done right, you should end up with a smooth surface with no visible seams.

in article snipped-for-privacy@netmask218-233-240-128.youiwe.co.kr, jal at snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote on 4/9/08 4:34 AM:

You should be prepared to redo the filling process one or more times before the seam is finally rendered invisible. In addition to what others have said, I like the following products (better than Squadron putty) for filling:

Bondo Glazing & Spot Putty (an automotive product). Dunno if it's available in the UK, but any auto supply store ought at least to have a product like it. It's sort of orange. Doesn't shrink as badly as Squadron putty, and doesn't attack the plastic as much either. I use it for first fillings of large gaps.

Gap-filling CA glule. This works really well when you need a filling material at least as hard as the surrounding plastic, e.g. when you're going to apply a natural metal finish over it. If you use an accellerator, you can sand it almost immediately (and don't wait very long before sanding because it gets REALLY hard after 30 minutes or so).

Mr. Surfacer products. If you can find these, they're great for small gaps and as a final putty/primer. Mr. S 500 is good for applying to gaps with a brush. Mr. S 1000 and 1200 can be sprayed over hairline gaps with no need to sand. They all dry hard enough to re-scribe, unlike Bondo (or Squadron putty).

HTH Pip Moss

Everyone: thanks a lot! Some really great advice and encouragement here!

John