question about federation DD mini

MAtchstick808 · Post by **MAtchstick808** » Thu Jun 16, 2016 8:24 am

so I'm having a bit of a problem with the fed DD. its way to front heavy... I had to do some touch up on the front saucer due to it taking a nose dive in my display case. Does anyone have any tips on how I can maybe balance out the mini?

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Thu Jun 16, 2016 4:20 pm

In a lot of cases, folks will glue "fender washers" to the base of the stand. This gets the center of gravity down lower.

In cases like the very nose-heavy metal Fed DDs, I also filled the plastic base with small metal shot ("bird shot") before gluing the washers on, to add even more weight.

That's an old trick from plastic scale model airplane building, to get the things to stay on their nose gear and not sit on their tails -Pour some bird shot (or some lead fishing weights) into the nose cone, dump some white glue in on top of them to keep them clumped up and in-place, then assemble the model.

MAtchstick808 · Post by **MAtchstick808** » Thu Jun 16, 2016 7:36 pm

djdood wrote:In a lot of cases, folks will glue "fender washers" to the base of the stand. This gets the center of gravity down lower.

In cases like the very nose-heavy metal Fed DDs, I also filled the plastic base with small metal shot ("bird shot") before gluing the washers on, to add even more weight.

That's an old trick from plastic scale model airplane building, to get the things to stay on their nose gear and not sit on their tails -Pour some bird shot (or some lead fishing weights) into the nose cone, dump some white glue in on top of them to keep them clumped up and in-place, then assemble the model.

thanks for the tips i'll give the washer idea a try.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Thu Jun 16, 2016 7:57 pm

Not to much trouble with my older, Zocchi plastics, but with the newer metal ones... I just moved the mounting point on them.

Instead of using the mounting hole in the engine... I filled that in with epoxy before priming / painting. I then drilled a new mounting hole in the rear portion of the saucer. You have to play with the location a bit to get it between the sensor dish and the warp nacelle... but it can be done.