Last year I purchased 3 Aoshima 1/24 drift machine kits, the GTS-t Skyline, A31 Cefiro and C33 Laurel. I've noticed that all 3 have a warped chassis, its bent like a banana, with the unwanted effect of giving serious positive camber on the wheels.

As far as I can see, I have two options;

1. Heat up the chassis in either hot water or use a butane torch enough to soften the plastic and bend back into shape.

or

2. Scratchbuild an entire new chassis from plastic sheet, using the original chassis as a template.

Has anyone come across the same issue? What solution did you use?

Any help appreciated

I have had a warped chassis or 2 but not as bad as yours sounds, i would go with the hot water idea and bend the chassis a little further than you need and than run it under cold water to set it in place. Good luck.

Andrew,

I had some rather thick resin parts that were warped and I used hot water. Once the parts were hot, I quickly placed them on a piece of wood, slapped some tape over the parts to hold them, and put under cool running tap water. I let them sit for a day taped, and they came out fine. Realize, I had everything at hand so once they came out of the hot water it wasn't but a few seconds until the cool water hit.

Granted, they were resin, but I'm thinking this will work for plastic too.

You should post a couple pictures of the warped parts and then which ever method you use, post a couple more....let us see what you did and how it worked out.

Mike

I wouldn't recommend a torch at all....too easy to melt through somewhere if you get too close. The hot water{coffee maker} is what I've done....build a "cooling table" out of an old board and set the jig up to where it'll hold the affected piece in place, nice and straight, while cooling.
I've had the worst luck with the revell truck{semi} kits being warped as well as my old 1/32 revell BF-110 wings.
I used to run an injection molder eons ago, and the only reason parts warp is from too hot{ran/cycled too fast} a mold. The parts come out semi liquid and haven't set up yet...pull a resin casting out of it's mold too soon and you get the same effect. Worst offenders....revell and old amt....

I have had this problem on a couple of cars and more than one 1/48 scale airplane kit. I always use the hot water method. One other handy tip is to use leggo's to build a jig. Yep, leggos....the kids toy. A $5.00 box of leggos is enough to build a jig for anything you want to do and the best part is you can change them around to fit anything from cars to planes to ships, etc.

Hermon