Back in 2012 at the Albuquerque Gathering I ventured into Bill Burgess hotel room to see what he had for sale. It was there that I found an example of the rather elusive 12B Land Rover with 11.5 x 45 Gray Plastic Wheels. It was in reasonably good condition aside from the fact that one corner was fractured off of the windscreen frame. Our friend Tinman asked me to share some of the photos of the repair process.
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Upon returning home to my dental office I sat down with my new broken Matchbox Toy and some of my dental restorative materials. I used a flowable composite resin filling material and two glass slabs to fabricate a piece roughly in the shape and size of my broken windscreen corner.
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Light activation of the composite resin
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Trimming the patch piece to proper length and shape
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Phosphoric acid etching of both the patch piece and the bare fractured metal on the toy
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The plastic snap top containers contain a liquid bonding resin which gets painted onto the etched patch and the etched metal. The syringe is a 2-part resin cement.
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Applying liquid bonding resin
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Light activation of the liquid bonding resin
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A small dab of the 2-part resin cement was added to both ends of the patch piece, held carefully in place and then light activated to "set" the cement.
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Fortunately the Testors military green model paint matches the 12B quite nicely
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The final product
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I've had a few people give me grief about ruining the value of this rare toy by "restoring" it. I think anyone with common sense understands I could pick up the toy and snap off my repair patch at any time and return it to the pre-restored condition. No, I just made it easier for me to gaze across my collection shelves without my eye going to that broken windscreen every time I looked at the 12Bs.
