The brackets which hold the driving lights to the bottom of the Monster Beetle nosecone break off very easily. Consequently undamaged nosecones are rare and expensive. There are a few ways to repair them floating around on the 'net but to me they all seemed like quick patch-up jobs. I thought I would have a go using Lars' soldering iron technique to re-build the brackets.

I used an E2 part (cut in half) from the Midnight Pumpkin.

 

Firstly I screwed my two rings to a driving light assembly to get the correct spacing and glued them to the bottom of the nosecone.

 

Once the glue was dry I removed the light assembly and used a hot soldering iron to heat up the area where the rings join the nosecone. I then used the soldering iron to build up the area with more plastic from a parts sprue. I tried to get a lot of heat into the join so the plastic would 'weld' together.

 

Once I was satisfied the rings were securely attached to the nosecone I filed away the excess plastic and sanded the brackets to the right shape. I also chose to fill the bottom of the nosecone between the brackets because I could not neatly finish the internal corners because of the lip on the bottom of the nosecone.

 

Now some grey primer, a very light sand and another coat of primer. It looks pretty good and it seems no weaker than an original nosecone.

 

My repaired nosecone beside an original nosecone. A keen eye will spot the difference but the repaired nosecone certainly does not scream out "broken and patched up" like screwing a bit of metal to the back etc does.

 

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Written by TB member vara351