Help repairing a AT-ST

QUOTE: Originally posted by ferni5 I'm new to modeling. I working on a star wars model, a AT-ST. I tried cutting out the front windows with a hobby knife, but I made a couple of bad mistakes. I have a couple of knife cuts on the face of the model. The window hole is in bad shape, it's not striaght and the shape is funny looking. I need help in repairing my mistakes. Does anyone have some advise I can use in repairing this damage?

The knife marks are easy. Just put some putty on the scratches and sand smooth after the putty has fully cured. The Window openings can be replaced by a flat piece of stock styrene with the new window openings cut out of them. Cut the replacement piece down so it is slightly larger than your window openings. Trace the shape of this piece onto the model over the old window. cut out the bad piece and glue the new piece in. Fill the seams with putty and let it cure completely. On the other hand if you have undercut the openings for the windows then I would just open them up to the right size with a needle file of proper profile.

Nicely put Woody. Just watch the old fingers when cutting styrene! And a nice set of needle files always comes in handy. Another way to cut into stock model parts is to heat up the X-acto blade with a flame and hot cut the plastic. Just use adequate ventilation. If your new to modeling you might try out techniques on a few cheap throw-away models(guinea pigs). Q'apla!!

I used my dremel to cut out most of the windows (it took 2 seconds) and then a flat needle file to tidy up the lines. I also used my dremel to intentionally scar up the face to give it some battle damage.