JJ Skippy
Well-known member
Hello everyone! I wanted to create a thread to document my experience of fixing landing gear on a new arrival that I got today: the Aeroclassics 1:400 Western Convair CV-240 (N8404H). I ordered the model off of eBay and got it for a good price; none had sold in the past three months either. Upon unboxing it, this is what I was greeted to:
This is now what I like to call the “stubbed toe” of model airplane collecting. More than likely, it’s one of the most painful and time-consuming repairs you’ll come across in this hobby. I have done two other repairs like this before; a Delta DC-9-50 (also by Aeroclassics) and a Gemini Jets Eastern DC-9-30 in the polished livery. Since landing gear is so small in 400 scale, regardless of what aircraft type you’re working with, there’s almost no room for error. Luckily, both the previous repairs went smoothly, albeit the gears are a little askew in their places. However, it’s more difficult when the landing gear is snapped off rather than simply detached from the fuselage, and that’s what happened to the starboard (right) main landing gear.
First off, thanks goes to my wonderful father for helping out with the repair. I don’t have steady hands and enough experience with super glue to complete this repair, so I called him in for assistance. Our approach to this was to fix the easy part first; the nose gear. This part went in quite well, as you can see in the photo above (I didn’t get a photo of it with the nose gear detached before starting the repair).
Now for the hard part: the main gear. As mentioned, this was snapped off brutally clean about midway down the strut. Good news is that the clean cuts are better than the more rugged ones. We used a pair of tweezers to get the main gear on. The two quarters you see on the wing were there to help keep the model stable so that it wouldn’t move whilst the procedure was being done.
Attaching it is so difficult due to the extremely small surface area. We had to reapply super glue twice as we got too much in the designated spot.
The piece was very hard to insert due to the aforementioned reason above. It was readjusted multiple times to try and line it up with the attached left main gear. Finally, we got it in…
…and then we used the tweezers as a placeholder for the model to let the glue dry. My father recommended at least 10 minutes before touching or moving it.
Now, we did let too much time pass because we got caught up with some NFL football on TV.
The result is a miracle! Successful repair was completed and it now sits proudly on my shelf. The main gear is very minimally crooked, so I’m very delicate with setting this model down on any surface so that it doesn’t collapse under the force. I’m very happy that this was a successful repair and I look forward to having this on display!
This is now what I like to call the “stubbed toe” of model airplane collecting. More than likely, it’s one of the most painful and time-consuming repairs you’ll come across in this hobby. I have done two other repairs like this before; a Delta DC-9-50 (also by Aeroclassics) and a Gemini Jets Eastern DC-9-30 in the polished livery. Since landing gear is so small in 400 scale, regardless of what aircraft type you’re working with, there’s almost no room for error. Luckily, both the previous repairs went smoothly, albeit the gears are a little askew in their places. However, it’s more difficult when the landing gear is snapped off rather than simply detached from the fuselage, and that’s what happened to the starboard (right) main landing gear.
First off, thanks goes to my wonderful father for helping out with the repair. I don’t have steady hands and enough experience with super glue to complete this repair, so I called him in for assistance. Our approach to this was to fix the easy part first; the nose gear. This part went in quite well, as you can see in the photo above (I didn’t get a photo of it with the nose gear detached before starting the repair).
Now for the hard part: the main gear. As mentioned, this was snapped off brutally clean about midway down the strut. Good news is that the clean cuts are better than the more rugged ones. We used a pair of tweezers to get the main gear on. The two quarters you see on the wing were there to help keep the model stable so that it wouldn’t move whilst the procedure was being done.
Attaching it is so difficult due to the extremely small surface area. We had to reapply super glue twice as we got too much in the designated spot.
The piece was very hard to insert due to the aforementioned reason above. It was readjusted multiple times to try and line it up with the attached left main gear. Finally, we got it in…
…and then we used the tweezers as a placeholder for the model to let the glue dry. My father recommended at least 10 minutes before touching or moving it.
Now, we did let too much time pass because we got caught up with some NFL football on TV.
The result is a miracle! Successful repair was completed and it now sits proudly on my shelf. The main gear is very minimally crooked, so I’m very delicate with setting this model down on any surface so that it doesn’t collapse under the force. I’m very happy that this was a successful repair and I look forward to having this on display!
I’ve done this exact repair on a couple of DC-10’s where the nose gear had snapped clean off at the stem. It was so tricky keeping it straight and level whilst holding in place with tweezers while the glue went off, which was such a pain, but I managed both repairs successfully. Didn’t touch the models until the next day! I then used a little silver paint afterwards to hide the join. 
