Battle Damage Repair 101

Most of the time a ship will take enough damage to need repair but not enough to deserve a complete reskinning. Here are some pictures to show you how easy it is to make small (and not so small) repairs to the skin without removing the entire skin.

Small Repairs

Many times all you have are a few isolated holes. For example:

Unless there is tearing or splintering inside the hull there is no point in replacing the entire window. The trick here is to enlarge the hole to a known size and make it uniformly round. You can then easily make a plug that will fit in the hole.

You can do this by taking two pieces of the telescoping brass tubing that is sold at most hobby stores. You want to adjacent sizes - so that one snuggly fits inside the other. You give the larger piece an edge tapering to the outside and use it to make the plugs from a clean sheet of balsa. You then give the smaller tubing an edge tapering to the inside and use it to enlarge the hole in your hull.

Once you have your tools made you can make plugs and enlarge the hole in the skin. Be careful to hold a block against the inside of the skin so that the tool cuts through the hole cleanly.

Once you have made the hole uniform in size and shape you can dab a little glue on one of the plugs you made and insert it into the hole.

Not-So-Small Repairs

Sometimes the above method will result in more plugs than skin. In those cases you are better off removing the skin from a window (or more) and replacing all of the skin for that section. Below you can see that there are at least seven through holes in the same two windows.

The first step is to remove all of the existing balsa from those windows. You will want to remove the balsa from half way across the ribs in either side. This will insure that the remaining balsa, as well as the new patch, have some support behind them at the edges.

You will want to clean up the edges as much as possible. You need to remove any small bits of debris or glue from the edges. If you have a wood hull you will also want to paint the ribs so that the patch will be easy to remove the next time you make repairs. Make certain you wait for the paint to completely dry.

Now you can cut a replacement piece of balsa just as if you were skinning the hull for the first time.

All that remains is to apply silkspan and paint!