Armor repairs

[Cujo3131]

Recently I bought a second hand chest and backplate...

 

Upon receiving them, I see that the straps are incorrect now with the CRL

and there is some minor cracking in places. Can a front/back plate

be repaired? can rivot holes be filled enough to repair previous builds?

 

Or did I learn a valuable lesson???

 

Just curious...

 

thanks guys!

 

Matt

[Donovan]

Same thing applies here

[Chef]

EVERYTHING is repairable...

 

It just depends on how much time and cost you're willing to put into it, and what you want the end result to look like.

 

Cracks:

 

Cracks appear at natural stress points, and by that very fact, they are likely to occur in the same place again.

With that in mind, I tend to glue an extra bit of plastic over the rear of the crack to reinforce it.

Carefully heat up a bit of plastic so it's malleable. Then press it onto the back of the affected area, so it takes on the same shape (important so it doesn't try to distort the original plastic when gluing).

Rough up both mating faces with a bit of sand paper and then glue down with some 'ABS Weld' style glue. Clamp together if possible.

 

 

Holes:

 

If you're planning on using the same hole again, carefully drill the top of the rivet head until you just remove the crown. (don't go mad with the drill... the heat can melt the plastic underneath). When the crown has gone, just pop the rivet out the plastic. Insert new rivet, use a backing washer. Job done.

 

If you're not planning on using it... Back with a bit of plastic as above with cracks. Then on the outside, fill the hole with a tiny bit of baking powder (enough to fill the hole). Then drop on a drop of superglue. This will react and go rock hard. Sand flat with a bit of sandpaper.

 

 

The end product:

 

Now this is the difficult part. If you want a perfect finish, then you'll probably need to paint the entire armour panel.

But Scouts are forgiving. With some sympathetic weathering you can cover over any cracks or holes and render them nigh on invisible.

[Griffin-X]

Post up some pics and let's see what you got...!

[4505Marcel]

You can also mix up some plastic weld and some fillings of abs into a paste and use that to fill holes, the same plastic weld as Rob said can be used to attach plastic strips tone rear of the armour over the cracks.

 

If the crack is still visible on the front just add so e weathering to hide it or polish out

[Silver Fox]

I had some minor cracking in my bucket in the chin, and chest and shoulders after a "minor" incident on a hockey rink at a troop . I used hairy bondo to reinforce all along the front around the neck and shoulders of the chest and back pieces, then sanded them nice and smooth. Same with the chin.