Painted body that is warped

[mav123]

Hello all! New member signing on,

I finished painting Revell's F430 kit and realized the body is warped . As a result, all four wheels are not flush to the ground. How can I straighten it out without affecting the nice paint job?

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[MidMazar]

With the body being painted already, your in a world of S%@*. Are there any pieces put on the body like mirrors,windows,etc? If not you can try putting it in a bowl of hot water almost boiling for 30sec to min and then take it out and hold it in the position that makes it look straight. Can soak it with cold water while doing this last step to instantly cool it down and stay the way you had it. Another safer way would be to use a blow dryer, same technique heat the model and position. Good luck

Good luck, if you can't get it straight get a replacement body from revell. Easiest and best way.

[rsxse240]

Just use hot tap water to warm the plastic, or if you are in Oklahoma right now, you could just walk out side with it and the heat would make the plastic so soft you could mold it with your hands, haha.

Stay AWAY from HOT stuff like hair driers and near boiling water with painted plastic. You'll end up ruining the paint and possibly the body as well.

Most of the kits I get that are warped, when I attach the body to the chassis and interior tub, it gets most if not all the warpage out. You might simply try this method if the warpage isn't that bad.

Hot tap water and a little tweaking, then like stated above, a good dousing of cold water to "lock" the shape is what I would try.

[CrateCruncher]

Water boils at 100C or 212F. I recently used a microwave to remove a huge warp in an airplane fuselage. I immersed the fuse in a casserole dish of water. I slowly increased the temperature of the water (120F, 130F, 140F...). The warp finally disappeared at 180F. Be careful and use a thermometer! Resin becomes pliable at as little as 120F while some plastics take as much as 200F. It all depends upon the density of the styrene. If you overshoot you end up with a blob..........

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I used a piece of plastic sprew from the same kit to find out the exact temp where the plastic became pliable. Once I knew the temperature, I pulled the warps out of the fuse temporarily with rubber bands and then immersed the whole thing in the water. I let it stay in the bath for about 5 minutes and then air cool. When I took the rubber bands off the warps were gone!

[rsxse240]

/\ I hadn't thought of using the microwave to slowly warm water to get rid of warpage.

[Ferrari TR]

It seems more likely that you have an assembly problem. If you didn't notice the warped body before you put it on the chassis you may simply have a corner of the inside of the body running into the interior or chassis in a place on one side that is making the assembled car crocked. I always try to test fit the whole model at some point to see if it will eventually all fit together. Even than problems do occur.