Melting styrene rod to fill gaps?

I've used stretched sprue to fill small gaps and "melted" it into place by applying liquid cement with a small brush.  The softened sprue "rod" can also be easily "tooled" while soft with a small screwdriver of knife blade to replicate  welded seam where appropriate.   Might give that a try?   Good luck!

Gary

Another idea would be to "shape" your rod or triangle of styrene before you cement it in place.

File the rod/triangle lengthwise until it is the fit you want, then glue in it there. If you use a triangle instead of round you can file it until it just catches the sides of the gap, maybe eliminating sanding after cementing completely. In any case, you can do some of the sanding ahead of time and reduce the amount needed after gluing.

Rex

Someone on here used styrene shavings melted in mek adhesive as a filler.  I haven't tried that but it seems more stable than heat melted filler.

I HAVE used stretched sprue to fill gaps on wing roots.  It worked well.  I opted for sprue over filler as the filler has no bonding strength and a piece of sprue "melted" in place with mek adhesive helps improve the bond.

I know several people who dissolve scrap styrene in lacquer thinner to make their own "putty."  But they do it as a money-saver, not as a time saver.  Whatever method of dissolving or softening the styrene rod, I can't believe it will be faster than putty or gel CA.

I agree with Don. Do you need the filler to provide additional strength or are you just looking to fill a gap? That should give some guidance on which medium to choose. Either way, though, I don't see how you fill the gap without needing to do some final filling on low spots and some finish sanding to completely eliminate the evidence of a gap.

Thanks guys.  Much appreiciated.

@BarrettDuke - I'm just looking to fill the gap with as little sanding as possible so that I can maintain the roundness of the floats - I have a tendency to over fill, end up with an ugly non-flush over fill, try to sand it flush and still end up with it being visible, and/or destroy surrounding detail or create flat spots where there shouldn't be.  You can see evidence of what I mean in my Jolly Green build where I used Mr Surfacer and overdid it in areas.

The idea I've got in my head is that I could  melt the styrene into the gap kind of like you can melt solder so it runs and thus I could create a flush fill without needing to sand it afterwards.

Having looked about some more, and having read what you guys have said I think I was onto the wrong idea in the first place.  I also found the youtube vid I watched previously and it was as Don said, melting styrene in lacquer, or in the case I saw acetone, and using it as putty.

I think I'll either buy some Vallejo plastic putty (I'm wondering if I could pump it into the gap using a syringe and let it flow and self-level or level it off with my finger or a q-tip?) or go back to my original idea and try to keep any Mr Surfacer I have to use confined to the gap and sand around the area as sympathetically as I can.

Having said the above, about Vallejo plastic putty and a syringe I've had an idea - I could put Tamiya masking tape over the gap, then secure a piece of card or something else rigid to the masking tape and/or the rest of the float, to give a bit of rigidity over the gap, seal one end of the now closed canyon to prevent overspill at that end (and so I'm not just pumping stuff straight through) with some putty and/or styrene, then pump the plastic putty (or even Mr Surfacer 1000) into the gap and then just remove the rigid card and peel the Tamiya tape off when the putty has dried.

It should be just like filling a tube and when I pull the tape off (assuming it doesn't pull the putty/Mr Surfacer with it) I should have a flush fill that doesn't require a lot of, if any, sanding.

In theory...

I think controlling the temperature of the liquid styrene to keep it in just the right viscosity state would be a bear, and you might risk overheating areas around the gap.

I don't understand why sanding down the bulge would make it more visible.  Just make sure you do not use too coarse a sandpaper.  Also, I use fine needle files, which act like fine sandpaper, and stay flat, for sanding seams and filled areas of seams.  Gives more control than sandpaper.