Friday, January 7, 2011

The wheel fell off ...

I have just relocated from Canberra to Perth, a distance of 3723km.  This is roughly the same as from London to Moscow (if you are not a crow).  The journey was part car and part train.  Remarkably the breakages within my wargames collection have been few (although I’m still unpacking).  A shield had fallen off a Hoplite, although this might have happened before the move; easily fixed.  No damage to my ACW and in unpacking them I got around to a job I had been meaning to do for a while – about twenty stands were a few millimetres too deep, just enough to be annoying.  A sharp knife and a lick of paint and they are now ready for service.
But I did find in my collection of perhaps best forgotten plastics that the spare chariot I was doing for my Ancient Britons DBA army had suffered a misfortune:

Is this a sign I should abandon my attempt to build a matched pair of Airfix Romans and Ancient Britons for DBA?

2 comments:

  1. As long as the wheel isn´t damaged i would suggest the following action.
    1.Get a steel rod that has the same diameter as the original axle( a nail will do but with the head cut off)
    2. Cut away the old axle on the base of the chariot.
    3. cut steel bar to length of the old axle
    4. heat up over a candle (holding it with pliers) and carefully lay it onto the bottom of the chariot where the old axle was. Wait until the bar has bonded with the plastic and bingo.
    Cheers
    Paul

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  2. The chariot is PVA glued to the cardboard base. That I fear prohibits too severe surgery, but, if I can pin it in a variation of what you suggest (heating a small dress pin and pushing it through the wheel centre into the stub of the old lug), it does also give strength to the model. I fear the chariot may have plastic fatigue.

    A tricky repair, but it will be a while before I will attempt it (if at all).

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