I just can’t get the seams right when I join the wings to the body, is there a good tutorial out there ? or can some one let me know the how. I have tried gap filling superglue, putty… ect. do not have problems with tanks and ships. I use Tenax-7r glue.
If the gaps are too big, you can try filling them with stretched sprue. I have different size and shape styrene stock. The beauty of stretching styrene is that they will retain their origional shape, just in a smaller scale, so you can fill the majority of almost any gap with it and then just fill in the remaining areas with putty or gap-filling CA.
Another option is to actually insert spreaders inside the fuselage where the wings attach using lengths of unstretched sprue from your kit, trimming the lengths until you get a decent fit.
G’day Sherman1111, evryone experiences this problem from time to time. It is just a case of patienence and test fitting before glueing. You made need to file here and there to get the fit you require or maybe having to glue a thin piece of styrene strip in to get it right. It is also important that you check your wing angles before gluing etc so that you maintain the correct angle for that particular aircraft. Some go together some don’t but take your time. Personally I use Tamiya’s extra thin or Revell Contacta with Tamiya’s Basic or Squadron White putty and get go results.
What aircraft, scale and brand are you currently on?
Cheers Konig Tiger
I can “ditto” the idea of the fuselage spreader. I did that in an Airfix Spitfire and it worked perfectly.
Here’s a pic of the spreader:
And here’s the difference it made.
Here’s before the speader:
And after:
And after gluing:
Another thing that may help is spreading some tape from wingtip to wingtip after gluing. That can pull the wing joints tight. This works best with smaller gaps, so you don’t get the dihedral angle to high.
And adding shims from sprue or plastic card can help too. Here’s some I added to a Revell P-40B:
And how it looked after gluing the wing on, but prior to filling the gap with putty:
And the final result:
I’ve also heard some folks say they prefer gluing the upper wing parts directly to the fuselage, then gluing the lower wing on afterwards. That moves any gaps to the underside of the wing near the tips- much easier to fill and sand.
It often takes some time to figure out which approach will work best, based on the kit. Just keep trying and testing and dry-fitting! [:)]
I can vouch for Jon’s sprue spreader method, it saved me a lot of filling and sanding on my Zero! Thanks Jon!
You can also take some masking tape (use a long piece) attach one end to the underside, wrap it over the end of the wing towards the upperside all the way over the cockpit then all the way across the wingspan, then make sure it’s good and tight as you wrap it over the end of the other wing tip and stick it to the underside. You’ll need to pull the wings upwards before you stick it, raising the dihedral of the wing which will help tighten the gaps as well. Just be careful not overdo the dihedral though so, you want the wings to look close to the real thing and don’t want them angling too high. If necessary you can use that trick in conjunction with the fuselage spreading technique as well.
Sherman,
I use a completely different method - and you’ll probably think I’m mad…
I usually glue the upper wings to the completed fuselage sides…first.
THEN I glue the lower wings onto the bottom of the fuselage and adjust the fit of the uppers and the lowers as I glue. I don’t often have any problems using this technique.
This way, I normally get a perfect fit between the wing and the wing root.
Thanks for the tips, I will try them and let you know how it comes out.
I thank you Sherman for bringing the topic up. Its going to help an awfull lot of us that are still quite new. Any tip is a good tip in my book.
…Guy
Guy, that’s one of the great things about these forums…often the answers to a particular question benefit more than just the poster who asked it. [tup]
Happy modeling!
Spot on Mike. Ive learnt more on the forum in the short time ive been back in the hobby than i care to think of. You guys rock. Thankyou.
…Guy
Assuming you are doing a low wing monoplane, you can also glue the wing bottom to the fuselage, then snug the wing tops against the wing roots. If it looks like there will be too much of a misalignment twixt top and bottom, you may need to use the spreader method in conjunction. The trick is multiple test fittings prior to the application of glue.
Phil
Jon–
Thanks for those pictures! I’ve always heard about “spreaders” etc, but was never quite sure what people meant by them!
THat’ll sure come in handy!