Sanded away raised lines and rivets

Hello!

You could partially rescribe the area - I don't see a real problem mixixng raised and recessed panel lines a little. But if you mean to keep raised panel lines throughout the model, you can re-create the sanded away detail using stretched sprue. You heat some injection frame - sprue - using a candle or a zippo lighter, and when it gets soft, you stretch it until you have a rod of a diameter comparable to the raised panel line. You should remove the whole line (corner to corner) that has been damaged, then scribe a slight groove where the line should be. then you fix the end of the stretched sprue to one corner, wet it a little with lacquer thinner, and put the stretched sprue in the groove. You cut the remainder of stretched sprue with a sharp blade at the other corner, and you're done. To make it stronger, you could add some more lacquer thinner, just don't touch that line until everything dried really well - it becomes very soft. For fixing the corners you could take CA glue. Rivets can also be done - drill small holes, put short lengths of stretched sprue in them and let dry. After that, you can trim the stubs so that they stick out just right, even try to make them spherical by light sanding.

Hope it helps, good luck with your project and have a nice day

Paweł

Depends on whether you are going to paint it with colors or do a natural metal finish.  A painted finish frequently doesn't show rivets at all.  Panel lines depend on the type of panel.  If it is a riveted in place panel it also may not show that much. Only panel lines you really need to worry about are removable panels or things like landing gear doors, airbrakes, etc.

Often times panel lines and rivets on kits are overdone and often they look better filled anyway.  Sometimes the kits have boilerplate rivets on areas where the real plane had flush rivets :-(

On the other hand, a natural metal finish really shows the panel ines, and even often shows flush rivets. In the case of flush rivets you can sometimes use a slightly different color paint, applied in very small spots with the tip of a toothpick, to simulate them.

I use chart tape or graphic tape. You can still find it in art stores. It comes in an assortment of sizes and once its burnished down it takes paint vere well.  It can also be used as masking if you need very tiny lines and dont want to cut down a large piece of tape. And I have also used it to represent tiedowns for loads on trucks and railcars. WARNING! Chart tape does NOT like pure thinner or laquer based paints!!!

Almost forgot..... The small size tape is PERFECT for weld seams on armor. Can also be used for zimmerett  but it would take forever!

I use Archer Fine Details resin impregnated decals myself to reproduce rivets and raised panel lines.  Expensive but effective.   And I'm too much of a wimp to stretch sprue or run hair through CA and such.

Chris