TimReynaga-Thank you! This project was a labor of love-which is what got me through the 1,000 rivet replacement phase.
Taffey3-Thanks!
18bravo-Good question! Being a resin kit there were a lot of rough edges and deep scratches all over the upper and lower hull. As I smoothed and rounded these areas out, rivets were lost. As they were lost I drilled shallow holes that matched the original rivet diameter. After all the flaws were cleaned up I started the process of mixing 5-Minute Epoxy and dotting a tiny amount into each hole with the end of a needle. Having each hole drilled the same size ensured a consistent size rivet. Note the original 11ft. movie filming miniature (like this model) has over 20,000 total rivets. I was only able to get about 20-30 rivets replaced per epoxy mix before it began to harden so this was a time consuming process.
Phillip1