THE Idiot's Guide to Kitbashing

[Valandar]

But is $32 USD for a 4' x 8' sheet of it a good buy?

[WraithVerge]

i would definitely say so.

[Dark_Lord_Prime]

AutobotLoki brought up a good point in another thread:

 

I like the hot pin technique and deffinitely plan to use it but one thing still plagues me in terms of dismantaling Alt Sideswipe. I notice a lot of the pins that go through the shoulders/conecting the legs are completely blocked off by molded red plasic. How do you pop the pin from one side or do you sacrifice the plastic. I completely unclear about how to approach this.

On his legs: if you mean the pin holding the red to the black, I'd suggest using a small, flat-head screwdriver to pry the black from the red while you're heating the pin. Just don't force it, and don't press down on the pin with the iron; rather, just touch the tip to the pin so the heat can transfer.

 

Same thing with the shoulder pins, it looks like, except the gap is tighter. You can either try wedging the small screwdriver in the gap (gently, if at all possible, so as to avoid scarring up the plastic), and prying little by little with the pin being heated.

 

Or, you could try holding it so the pin is facing down, then hold the iron against the pin lightly, so it will slide out on its own (at least far enough that you can get the screwdriver in more easily). This technique may avoid scarring the shoulder's plastic, but could possibly result in warping the pin-hole if done wrong.

 

I did this with one of e-Prime's wheels when I was testing the hot-pin idea, and it doesn't appear to have done any damage to the hole, but there's always the possibility. Of course, the possibility of damaging something while working on a kitbash is always there, right?

 

Good luck!

[JustLOKIPLVY]

Hi Wrath Verge I understand you're the one to talk to in terms of some of the concerns/issues I may be facing in the near future with my first kitbash.. Now that I have a pretty good idea about what to do with Sideswipe I want to adress a thought about plastic model stability. For Trailbreaker I'm using a 1.25 scale 84 GMC pickup with a body lift. The way I've got it designed I plan to use a lot of the kits underside/ axle assembly which will neatly fold out away in bot mode. The front tires will come loose from the axle assembly and with the use of shock mods will fold neatly inside the chest cavity which will drop doww very much like G1 Trailbreaker. The wheel idea is being borrowed from Universe Nemesis Strike. The middle section of the assembly will protrude through a hole in the chassis when the entire cab is flipped backwards and pushed up to form a backpack. The back wheels will fold over the legs, and the split assembly attached to ech wheel will protrude through hinged opening doors in the box liner. My main concern at this point is stability dince the axles are essential to the design and model parts are characteristically very week. What would you recommend to strengthen such parts. I've read about the plastic welder and that may be possible but is there a spray or adhesive available for this kind of thing?

 

Thanks again,thumbsup1.gif oh and so you know what I'm working with heres a link to my original thread.

http://www.TFans.com/index.php?showtopic=18569 :

[Valandar]

Okay, went to Wal-mart today to price some things, and did not find Devcon Plastic Welder.

 

All they had by Devcon (besides some Superglue) was a 5-minute Epoxy rated at 1500 lbs, and a 30 minute epoxy rated at 4000 pounds.

 

Both came in a single side-by-side tube with a single plunger - push on the plunger, both tubes squirt out the same amount.

 

Are either of these close enough to the Devcon Plastic Welder to work as well? Or will these become brittle eventually?

[jourdo2k3]

Okay, went to Wal-mart today to price some things, and did not find Devcon Plastic Welder.

I've had trouble finding this too! Went to a few different Walmarts and nothing. Does anyone know if it is available in Canada?

[WraithVerge]

Okay, to kill three sujects at once:

 

 

Autobot Loki:

 

Plastic welder will strengthen the parts, but i would strongly recommend rebuilding the axles. styrene is notorious for being weak, especially when it's in thin, small parts. I would recommend using ABS plastic, like the parts runners from a gundam model (these have "ABS" printed right on the frame.). not all the frames are ABS; only certain transform parts. you can probably pick one up cheap at target or somewhere. But even if you just use a heavier plastic or metal pins or something, it's far better than the existing axles. In my opinion, they won't support the weight. Another option is the axles from another toy or something similar.

 

Valandar and jourdo2k3:

 

i've heard similar complaints about the availability of devcon plastic welder from other people. I'm beginning to wonder if it's a question of regional availability or something. You can try this link to see if the company itself can suggest where to buy it:

 

http://www.devcon.com.

 

 

But for the record, I don't recommend epoxy. While it's strong, it also tends to get brittle, especially in thinnner applications. Not what you want when attaching small parts that need high strength.

[Lobo]

How you can best use this technique depends on how much access you have to the wheel's pin, and how well you can utilize that access. For this, the ends of the pins are exposed on the inside of the trailer piece, so the driver was placed into their holes and the pins pushed outward.

 

It may be possible to pull the wheel out as you heat the pin, but I'll be looking into that later, for other projects.

Well, I put DLP's heated pin technigue to the test this weekend and it works great!

 

I wanted to remove the wheels from Alt Smokescreen but there wasn't anywhere to push the pins out. Especially on the front tires monted on the turnbuckels. I wasn't too worried about messing up the wheels because I had no intention of using them again.

 

I started by using putting the hot iron on the head of the wheel pin and left it there for about 10-15 seconds. Then I pulled on the wheel itself and the wheel popped right off. The plastic had heated up enough to make it pliable enough that it went right over the head of the pin. But to my suprise the plastic of the wheel went right back to normal and it look like the wheel is useable again.

 

I then put the iron back on the pin for another 10-15 seconds and used pliers to pull the pin out. Slid right out, no problems at all. And it work the same for the remaining 3 wheels.

 

Though, different types of plastic might yield different results.

 

It's a great technigue that I plan on using again. Thanks DLP!

[Dark_Lord_Prime]

Well, I put DLP's heated pin technigue to the test this weekend and it works great!

glad to hear it!

 

I started by using putting the hot iron on the head of the wheel pin and left it there for about 10-15 seconds.  Then I pulled on the wheel itself and the wheel popped right off.  The plastic had heated up enough to make it pliable enough that it went right over the head of the pin.  But to my suprise the plastic of the wheel went right back to normal and it look like the wheel is useable again.

That's exactly what happened with the first wheel I took off of e-Prime's "skirt" piece! I didn't even realize what had happened until I looked again and saw the pin was still in place, but the wheel wasn't damaged. :lol

[WraithVerge]

I'll have to keep this tip in mind. I wonder if it would work on G1 Prime's front wheels.......