 1 2020 Thunderbird repair My 2010 Thunderbird does not get much use - hardly any. It just rests happily in its cradle in the roof of the garage. This neglect has taken it toll with five panels splitting and needing to be replaced. |
 2 2020 Thunderbird repair As luck (bad) would have it, most split panels are on the top right through the graphics. I'm using Polyspan rather than tissue for repairs. |
 3 2020 Thunderbird repair At this point the repairs have had three coats of thinned dope and five of dope and talc. They have been undercoated and wet-sanded. |
 4 2020 Thunderbird repair Over a 10 year period with many 45°+ days spent in the garage, the tissue was way too brittle. The more I repaired, the more it broke. |
 5 2020 Thunderbird repair Result: stripped it all off and started again |
 6 2020 Thunderbird repair I had to sand all of the remaining tissue away. A lot of it lifted off easily with a flat hobby blade and other parts refused to budge and required repairs afterwards. |
 7 2020 Thunderbird repair I also had to remove the flaps and these needed minor repairs. |
 8 2020 Thunderbird repair I re-tissued the main panels with Polyspan but I had to use tissue for the wing tips because I could not get the Polyspan to go around the compound curves properly. Here, after five coats of dope/talc, I'm sanding the wing back with 600 dry. This went well. |
 9 2020 Thunderbird repair Standard procedure for me is to spray white primer from a rattle can. |
 10 2020 Thunderbird repair I never have the base paint lift when I'm putting on the graphics and I think this step is the reason. |
 11 2020 Thunderbird repair As on the original ten years ago, I'm using clear over base. The white base is on and it looks OK. I take the opportunity clean up the damaged fin a bit. |
 12 2020 Thunderbird repair The three base colours go on but not without some drama with the metallic maroon. I had to sand it off and start again. |
 13 2020 Thunderbird repair Finally finished with a coat of clear over the three base colours. |
 14 2020 Thunderbird repair All back together with the flaps re-glued into place. |
 15 2020 Thunderbird repair This time, I decided against putting the eagle logo on the wing and painting the stars of the Southern Cross on the maroon wing panels. I used ny 0.7 mm black line tape to make the wing a little more interesting. I made a template for each curve and traced the line with a soft pencil. I then stuck the 0.7 tape over the pencil lines. |
 16 2020 Thunderbird repair The clear was very old and was the consistency of treacle so it did not go on all that well. For the first time ever, I thinned the clear with slow thinners and mixed in a small amount of plasticiser - about 5%. Return to the home page |
