I accidently posted this before in the ‘Space’ section- my apologies
I am finishing up my old revell / encore models uss olympia. It is almost entirely complete however early in the build the plastic kit-supplied base broke off. To avoid freaking out and stalling the build I just soldiered on. Now I am at the end and there are two jagged holes on the bottom of the hull where the base should be.
I have no idea where to go from here. I don’t know how I could secure it to a traditional base with no access to the interior. If anyone has any ideas I would really appreciate the help. I can provide pictures if necessary.
I still have quite a few railings and lengths of rigging to do- so I want to get the base squared away. As I said before- I really have no idea where to go from here. Any and all help is greatly appreciated
Looks like a job for a Dremel tool to me. It would take some work, but you probably could use the Dremel to grind out the holes to match a round dowel. If you could turn a step on the dowel or post the hull could more securely glue to that. Or, fashion a cylindrical collar to fit over the dowel to create a step.
I used to use brass stanchions made from lamp finials as mounts, but lately I have taken to using clear acrylic (Plexiglas) rods as mounts. If you know someone with a lathe you could have him turn an adapter from wood or something, that would have a step to better glue the hull to, and a hole drilled for maybe a half-inch acrylic rod. You’d need two of these, one for each hole in hull.
Another possibility is a cradle, about half the width of the hull, just longer than the distance between the holes. Make it out of 3/4 inch wood- nice hardwood. You’d have to sand or carve a slight curve in this to match the curve of the bottom of the hull. Then make a base larger than the ship out of either the same, or a contrasting wood. The “cradle”, a simple stick of wood, would act as an interface between ship bottom and base. The hull would be epoxied the cradle piece, which would in turn be glued to the base.
A nice wood base and a docking plan would be an attractive display and hide the holes with minimum work. The ship sits so low on the docking blocks the damage would be invisible.
Don’s idea has merit and would accomplish the same idea, the damage would be hard to see.
If the cradle doesn’t work out, you might try a normal wooden board stained nicely and get some heavy duty drywall anchors (the ones with the machine screws and the spring-loaded V-shaped anchor portions). Find yourself some metal tubing you like (copper and brass are cheap and you can cut to length with with a dremel, just be careful because they get warm fast!). Run the screws through the centers of the tubes and you’ll need to attach the clips before inserting into the holes, then just tighten until the clips tighten and you’re good.
