Graphite chassis repair?

[tallpaul]

Is there any way to fill the 4 slots and still look respectable?

[aconsola]

depends on what you want do do with the finished product. If it is going to be a display piece you can fill the holes with epoxy or jb weld and then sand and paint the chassis.
I did something similar here:
http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=13270

if you plan on running it after it is finished I would think that paint would not hold up to well and you would be best off finding a filler that matches the color well. I think Scr8p had mentioned some auto bonding adhesive stuff that was a decent color match to graphite chassis, but I cant find the thread.

I suppose the last option would be to fill the holes with some pure-tech velcro straps to hold the battery in place

[RedScampi]

JB Weld is good stuff but has to be painted as ancansola said unless you don't care about the appearance. I just repaired this TQ10 chassis that was suffering from a lot of extra holes including a gaping wound hacked out for a servo saver. It fixed up my delamination problems too!

[jwscab]

depending on how meticulous you are, you can repair this somewhat close to invisible, but you will need a donor part that has unidirectional fibers, file/drill/sand the slots nice and uniform, and cut out 'slugs' that fit with a small amount of air gap in them.

take some crystal clear epoxy resin and either add in black dye(or black epoxy) or if you are very careful, you could put graphite shaving in the mix, but be cautious as it's not good to breath, use something like 30 minute epoxy so you have time to set up.

then set up the chassis on a very flat surface, covered in saran wrap, apply the epoxy to the slugs or slots, put the slugs in the slot, and sandwich another layer of saran wrap on top with another flat object and load it down with heavy weights.

let it dry, and see how it came out. you can lightly scuff the epoxy to approximately the surface I think. maybe a quick wet sand the whole chassis with high grit paper, 1000 or 1500 maybe?

that would probably be the way I would attempt it. I would cut the slugs so the grain matched, BTW.

[tallpaul]

Thanks for the input guys.

I don't have another chassis to cut slugs from so it looks like some type of epoxy will have to do.

[tiger1]

Would this kind of epoxy repair pop loose under running condition??

I worry that strength would be a problem....

[RedScampi]

Would this kind of epoxy repair pop loose under running condition??

I worry that strength would be a problem....

JB Weld won't. I've repaired rusty gas tanks with it.

[aconsola]

Would this kind of epoxy repair pop loose under running condition??

I worry that strength would be a problem....

strength seems to be good. I was concerned about the plug of jb weld pushing right through the flat walls of the cavity so I usually sand the edges down on both sides of the plate so that the edge of the plug material is v-shaped to help keep it in place.