Category: Gundam

Introduction

Welcome to “RG Aile Strike Build Day 12” where I am building up an RG Aile strike model. If you haven’t read any of the other parts I would recommend going back to the start. You can find that here. In the first post I covered the box, runners and provide the manual.

I am taking my time to ensure I clean up all the marks that can be cleaned up. As with any build like this, if you end up with discolouration or a small white “stress” mark you are likely to need painting to get rid of those. I may have a look at simple quick methods of dealing with those items, especially as I find that it has a habit of happening on the grey pieces. I also accept I may need to work on my cutting style as I’m sure that will contribute to it!

The Break

Ok, normally at this point I outline the process that I follow for taking the parts from the runners and cleaning them up. However I have a confession. You may, or may not, have noticed that recent pictures the model was nor sporting their right shoulder pad. This was, I had to admit, not the models fault. Rather I had been a little too keen with the nippers and rendered the joint that clips over the arm to hold the shoulder in place weak.

The part looks like this:

I guess it would probably be more accurate to say the piece shouldn’t look like that. It should be more a horseshoe shape and less of a “on no some spoon broke me” shape.

What to do?

There there were a few potential options. The first would be to just glue it in place, but that would render the arm with very limited mobility. The next option would be to cut a small square of plasticard to size and then file away till I have something that works. The final, and far more fun option would be to design a piece in some 3d software and print one out.

Which did I choose?

I’m guessing from the way I loaded the what the options were, we all know I went down the 3d route. I recently bought a small 3d printer with the specific view of printing adapters for the stands I sell in the shop (here). They are cheap and versatile but I wanted to offer people the opportunity to get some slightly different connectors.

So that means I have a small 3d printer to-hand (*whew*).

My final model looks like this:

During the process I printed and tested multiple pieces tweaking the width of the legs etc.

Finally I reached one I was happy with and slotted everything back together. It isn’t perfect, and I may need to tweak it further but I can print more if needed!

As you can see it appears to be doing the job. On the whole an evening well spent I feel. I also got to use the 3d printer which is a bonus!

Conclusion

I was the one who broke the part. I must have trimmed it too close when using the nippers. However, this goes to show that with a little time and patience there are options to work around broken pieces.

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