Warped plastic car body

[49 Hudson]

I started the Silhouette show car model and the top part of the body is warped. I heard that you can take a warp out of resin by using hot water and 'countering' the warp. Will that work with a plastic body as well???

[Guest]

Yes, you can do it that way. You can also use a hair dryer to concentrate the heat in a certain area if you need to. I would try to take the warp out without using heat first. Just twist it more than needed until it comes back the way you want it. I've straightened out badly warped hoods and bodies with no heat at all.

[hedotwo]

I always have a pan of ice water available to quickly dip the body into after heating. I find it helps eliminate alot of the "memory" the plastic has in wanting to return to it's original state.

[road]

New member here old time builder.

I recently started to build an original 1/12 camaro. I found the body was badly warped. the front left corner was 1/2" up.

This has worked for me in the past thought I would post it

I will warn that extreme caution is need here.

I have used the method on polystyrene bodies both old and newer and a 1/8 scale Monogram IROC rear window.

Not sure about resins

So here is what I did.

I made a set up board from 3/4" plywood 10" wide x 2ft long with a bolt in the middle for holding it in my vise.

This particular body was twisted at the left front corner and opposing windshield post to the rear quarter.

I set the board up flat in my bench vise.

I markered a few straight reference lines on the board with a sharpie.

I took a few measurements of the body as it sat on the board with a steel ruler noted these on paper.

I set the body on the board and made a note of the alignment to the lines on the board

Next I used a Mastercraft heat gun on High setting.

Slowly warming up the body from about 6 " away.

When the body was warm enough to feel the heat from the plastic a few inches away.

I started to correct the warpage by re-twisting the body gently by hand.

Then quickly tapped it to the board.

Then I used compressed air to cool it.

I repeated this process until I had the warpage removed .

Noting along the way as I used my sharpie lines and measurements for reference.

Once the body was acceptable to me I then tapped it down again and cooled it.

The final step was to untape the body leave it on the board.

I began to reheat the body again with my heat gun.

As the body gently warmed up again it settled to near perfection with out touching it.

One last blast of cooled air

It was saved.

I hope this may help

[Ace-Garageguy]

Excellent procedure, Barclay (road). I've used a very similar method several times and got results I was happy with (and I'm a picky SOB).

What you say about "extreme caution" is true. Warm the model too fast or unevenly, or get it too hot, or tie it down too tight...plenty of ways to do more damage than good.