Citadel Giant Restoration: Part 3

The giant is stripped and cleaned up, but there's still a bit of work to do. 

The giant cleaned and disassembled

He started to come apart pretty much when I received him, starting with his remaining complete leg. The bath in Dettol hasn't helped the glue, which seems to have turned into a rubbery brown substance (see the previous Giant post for pic). It all peeled off easily though.

The pieces have pegs and sockets to help join everything together,  but the glue looks to have filled up some of the sockets, so I suspect they were never a close fit.

The broken ankle has, at some point,  been repaired with what looks like superglue.  This repair hasn't stood the test of time,  and the superglue residue needs removing to give a nice clean break.

This was fairly easy to do, the glue seemed quite brittle, and easily crumbled away.

Dave Stone (and others) suggested pinning the joint, I agree.  In fact I'm using two brass rods to secure the foot.  There are various ways of ensuring that holes for pins match up, but for something this important I'm pinning straight up through the sole of the foot and into the ankle. 

To hold the foot in place I used superglue.  I'm not relying on this for the actual strength of the joint, it's merely to keep everything in place for the pinning. To ensure everything stayed in place I wrapped the glued leg tightly round with masking tape. I didn't want anything coming adrift when I was drilling the holes for the pins.

Underside of the foot showing where the pins were inserted

I got some 1.5 mm brass rod from a local model shop (2K Hobbies), I've got plenty of drill bits. I used a cordless drill fitted with a 2 mm bit. This gives plenty of space for the epoxy around the pin.

The holes were drilled to a depth of about 40 mm and the pins cut just a little short. Then it's simply a case of slathering each pin with two part epoxy glue and inserting them, making sure that the holes are filled.

The pins were fitted separately, and were drilled in at angles. This ensures that the foot won't just lift off if the glue fails.

The leg repaired, but still with a gap at the ankle

That's not quite all. The bottom of the foot needed a gentle sand to remove excess glue, and the new join at the ankle needed a bit of greenstuff/milliput mix to smooth everything down.

All fixed!

Finally, it was all packed and posted off.

This has been great fun to do. I'm glad I got the giant back on his feet (literally), and it's been fun to be involved with this classic mini, if mini is the right term to use, even if only in a transitionary role.

I hope the new owner gets the giant painted up soon, and enjoys having him.

If I can persuade him, I'll share some pictures.