filling holes in lexan

[svenb]

I have a focus body which I want to put on a ta06 chassis but the front mounting holes obviously don't line up, has anyone filled holes in lexan body's so you can't see them?

Stickers won't cover and seeing an extra 2 holes on the bonnet would be naff.

Any help appreciated

Sven

[Gruntfuggly]

Normally I'd cover the holes with stickers - why do you say sticker's won't cover them?

Could you put some thick tape over the hole - then fill from the other side with shoe-goo. Once it's dry, remove the tape and apply stickers?

[whahooo]

Shoe-goo?

I've heard that one before, but this is a cover goo for filling holes in skateboarding shoes....

Is there not professional RC product?

I have to fill holes in my King Cab shell it has holes from laying around and transporting it....

[markbt73]

Lexan is notoriously hard to repair. I've never heard of anyone successfully filling holes. It might be possible, if you were planning on re-painting on the outside, but to make an invisible clear patch is likely to be impossible.

[StrokerBoy]

I'd be trying to make a bespoke mount that used the existing holes.

[XV Pilot]

A lot of so-called professional RC products are simply existing products with RC-specific labels stuck on them, along with an inflated price tag. If you can find what the product was sold as before it was relabelled, you can usually buy more of it for less. You could probably find Shoe Goo rebadged as Lexan RC Body Glue or something similar (and costing twice as much), but why bother when we know Shoe Goo works?

[one_hit]

To fill the holes on the hood, I just use scrap pieces of lexan painted in the body color, and cut them up to any shape thqt you think matches the body and then shoe-goo them to the holes. It's not perfect, but it's less of an eyesore than the holes

[svenb]

All good advice, but I think Strokerboy is right bespoke mounting if made nice would give me the option of using the body on the original chassis(TL01) or a TT01/TT02 etc chassis if I changed my mind, I have to have the correct decals on my cars

sven

[whahooo]

It's good to know that shoe-goo works, but its also a product specially advertised for the skateboarding scene and so it also has an inflated price tag....

There must be an industrial product that's the same compound as shoe goo, but I'm very bad in chemistry, so I do not know anything about the ingredients.

The only thing I know is that we never used shoe goo for repairing our shoes, we used a hotglue stick and a lighter because it was much cheaper and more dureable. Only the rich kids used the goo and the shoes of them didn't hold a bit longer, but they did not care, they had the money for new shoes all the time....

The goo costed about 15,- to 20,- the good hotglue sticks costed about 1,- per stick.

One shoegoo tube lasted maybe 3 repairs, one hot gle stick lasted about 8 - 10 repairs...

The only advantage of the goo was that it was more elastic, but the difference was not as drastic...

But on the other hand, you can't fix lexan with hot glue and you do not need much shoe goo to fill tiny holes in a lexanbody,

so shoegoo is the product of choice for RC body repair

So i'll order a tube of that stuff for my King Cab!

Thank you for that tipp!

[Gruntfuggly]

Use whatever you like, but my tube of shoe-goo has lasted several years and the stuff keeps battered lexan shells in one peice for ages! I tend to use it with plasterboard mesh tape. In fact my Stadium Thunder shell is probably more shoe-goo than lexan these days...

[IXLR8]

It's been a few years now, has anyone found a better method for filling unwanted body post holes?

I have a new Tamiya Porsche GT2 body with post holes that I won't be using.  I really want to fill the holes in the hood (bonnet, boot cap, or whatever it's called) before painting so that, hopefully, they become virtually invisible.

thanks 

[Pylon80]

Shoogoo is not a hype skateboarding product with an inflated price. It's been around for decades and is marketed towards people trying to save $ by repairing shoes rather than buying new ones. It's cheap/fairly priced and a rather large tube lasts for years. It just so happens that skateboarding makes you go through a shoe (usually your leading foot) in less than a week if you don't repair and protect the shoe. Ask me how I know. Back in the early 2000's I had budget for one pair of shoes per year but I was skateboarding every day. Towards the end of the year I had to avoid walking in puddles else I would get wet socks...

Now, Shoogoo is just very thick cement i.e. a rubbery material dissolved into a really nasty solvent. It's flexibility makes it ideal for lexan body repairs.

I too have a rare F1 body that I want to restore and it has holes I want to patch. I intend to make a round patch from a scrap piece of lexan with a punch, paint the patch same color as the body, hold it in place with tape on the outside and coat with shoogoo from the inside. I'll keep you guys posted when I get around to it...

[one_hit]

Here’s some of mine that have the holes covered with scrap lexan. It’s not perfect, but still better than having visible holes

[Willy iine]

I would first avoid drilling new holes and adjust (modify) the body post to mount using existing holes.

If that does not work, I would cut out a big section of the body and make custom hood vents or something out of styrene and mount onto the body.  But this is just me..  

[one_hit]

I believe this is less of a problem nowadays since Tamiya doesn’t pre-drill holes anymore on the body sets, but bodies from the TT series kits will still have holes pre-drilled. It’s not a problem if you use it on a XV-01, TT-01 or 02 but the TA, TB, TRF and XV-02 cars have the front posts mounted on the bumper. 

[Pizza Frog]

Stickers can be painted...

..or make a bodymount adapter to move the mount posts forwards or backwards, here's a tamiya adaptor that I use for one of my cars; 

[TurnipJF]

Instead of filling holes, I use these:

https://www.makeitbuildit.co.uk/tamiya-body-mount-extension-set-59128?gclid=Cj0KCQjwmZejBhC_ARIsAGhCqncK_cQXxixylQRV_Kq-QoFdUBtNfyc-7nFVgX9EgyR_kw3rl1RdRacaArJTEALw_wcB

Heat them up and bend them to a Z shape that allows you to clip them to the top of your existing body posts and then reach forward or back in order to use the existing body holes. You might need to trim the existing body posts down a bit to stay below the body,  but as long as they are not rare or irreplaceable, this shouldn't be an issue.

[Pylon80]

22 hours ago, one_hit said:

Here’s some of mine that have the holes covered with scrap lexan. It’s not perfect, but still better than having visible holes

It actually looks like the patches could be part of the bodywork! Nice job!

[SuperChamp82]

Shoo goo, flexible filler, then decant PS paint to airbrush correct colour and gloss on the outside - with 800 - 2500 wet and dry in between 

Tamiya polishing compounds - with their sponges - will make it almost indistinguishable done well 

If matching limited PS paint colours is tricky you can also use TS but layer PS clear in between coats so it doesn’t crack 👍

[Pylon80]

2 hours ago, SuperChamp82 said:

then decant PS paint to airbrush correct colour and gloss on the outside

I am not sure I understand. Are you making a touch up locally on the outside of the shell? And since there is no gloss PS paint or clear, you would clear with TS?

[SuperChamp82]

@Pylon80 yes, you have to paint on the outside of the shell

Tamiya do make a clear PS - it’s PS55 - and other PS have a lightly coloured semi gloss you can easily / gently layer - PS48 ?

You can also use a light full gloss layer in acrylic to finish - TS13 - but it’s best to sit on PS55 to reduce the risk of cracking under strain 

Personally, I’ve never felt the need - as PS55 looks more like lexan when dry 👍

 

[TurnipJF]

I really like the idea of covering the holes with pieces that look like vents. Perhaps someone could design and 3D print little louvered vent things that can clip into body post holes? Then you can just unclip them again if you want to use the holes?