In Progress » YT-1380f Corellian Light Freighter » Bondo Calrissian

Hrmm… Maybe my pilot’s name will be Lando’s not-well-known bastard brother Bondo Calrissian in honor of the amount of Bondo I’ve applied today. Maybe not… bad joke.

Anyway, this thing is coming along fairly quickly as far as the hull goes. The hard part will be later with the details and cabin. Anyway, after adding all of the ribs I filled them with Airsoft BB’s. I got about 2000 of them at Walmart for $4. I figured they’d be great filler being relatively cheap AND plastic. The balls were held in place with white glue and left to dry overnight.

Today I added several layers of Bondo automotive polyester filler over the balls/ribs. First was a rough layer which I gave a quick sanding to with my electric sander. Then a smoother application over that and another sanding. That took maybe 45 minutes total. One issue which I forgot about was that Bondo REALLY heats up when curing. This warped the top half slightly so my only recourse was to glue the top and bottom halves together now as opposed to later. No big deal as it fixed the issue. Now I’m just applying a layer of .020″ styrene sheet over the Bondo as it will allow my to glue plastic parts and armor plating easier as well as save me a crapload of sanding/smoothing.