Dental floss saves gums and windows

Have you ever worked on a model with a window that had fallen inside and wondered how you’d ever reglue it from the inside again? This happened to me recently while working on a 1/72 scale B-25. The window right behind the cockpit fell in while I was masking it. Fortunately, I had not installed the tail yet, so I shook the window out. Then I threaded some dental floss through the hole the window was meant to occupy and out the back of the aircraft, 1.

I had already masked the window with tape so I placed a drop of 5-minute epoxy on the tape and pressed the end of the dental floss into the epoxy and let it dry, 2. Once it was dry, I was able to pull the window back and glue it into place, 3.

Flat dental floss is the easiest to secure and control. Once the glue holding the window in place dried, I just needed to cut the floss and remove the tape.


Tip submitted by:
John Ross
Brooklyn Park, Minn.