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jasonnewyork

Repair ABS Body

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I've been trying to sell my old Grasshopper, in the FS section, but not takers. I'm thinking of restoring it as a basher for my nephews. If I do this, will need to keep costs down as I don't wish to spend a lot since a new one is so cheap. Anyway, the car currently has a GrassHopper II body. It has two cracks in the front and part of it folded under so need to build up with some filler. I would like to sand down and repaint the shell (minus the California Rasins, don't ask). I'm not going to apply any stickers, just paint, so I need to fill in the hole in the roof where the driver's head once was.

Can any of you recommend a material to build up the cracked area in the front and the screw hole on top? Please see the circled areas in the picture.

ghop_body.jpg

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The body is made of polystyrene and not ABS, so styrene bonding cement works (think static model kits). Glueing in a small piece of styrene into driver's head mount will fill the hole up. A little filler over the glued cracks hides them. The Tamiya filler is very fine and perfect for models. Auto fillers are much coarser and harder to sand.

The majority of Tamiya hard bodies are styrene and not ABS. The chassis is made of ABS and doesn't glue very well (if at all) once broken.

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Sorry, my mistake B). I have to look for Tamiya filler. Where can you buy Styrene sheets? Can I use some other plastic material lying around my house?

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The Testors modelling pully is very similar to the Tamiya stuff.

When I need to fill a hole or do a repair I either use scraps from static model builds (or left overs from kit bashing), or the sprue the static model parts came on, or grab sheet or section styrene from ebay.

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Looks like everyone is out of stock on the Tamiya putty so I will order the Testors.

I have a question about paint. The original Grasshopper manual suggests using Tamiya spray lacquer paint. Can I use an Acrylic paint such as Krylon? It's much cheaper to use stuff from Home Depot. Will one bond better or hold up longer?

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