Hello friends! I have just gotten into Armada and the first ship I bought outside the core set was my favorite ship, the ISD. The model is basically perfect and everything I have ever wanted in a little SD.

The problem came when I assembled it. When you look at my ISD head on, it very, very slightly, but noticeably, tilts to the left. It's only a tiny lean, but it is easy to see, especially when it is put next to my VSD, which is perfectly level. I am willing to bet a lot of people on a forum dedicated to painting spaceships smaller than a dime can see how infuriating even a tiny imperfection like this can be.

I am absolutely going to do SOMETHING to fix this. I don't want my ISD to spend its entire battlefield existence looking like the navigator has an ear infection. The plastic the stand is made of looks pretty rigid, so before I start possibly destroying my toy I thought I'd solicit advice/opinions here. The two things I've thought of doing are to submerge the very top end of the stand in hot/boiling water for a moment to try and soften it, then replacing the ISD, tilting it to level, and holding it in place for a few minutes, or ever-so-slightly shaving or sanding the peg at the top so it angles down to the right so the weight of the model itself would cause it to lean slightly to the right, counteracting the slight left lean.

Does anyone here have experience with doing something like this? Are either of these ideas workable, or is there some other method someone on here has used successfully before? I cannot tell you how much I appreciate any help in returning my flagship to level flight.

Usually, some heat and gentle pressure fixes bent plastic up pretty good- word of warning though, clear parts are usually much more brittle than other plastics. Alternatively, you could pull the key hole out of the destroyer, shim one side, and put it back in: the stand may still be bent, but the ISD will level out if you do it right.

If I were you, I'd try contacting FFG and asking for a replacement (unless it got bent due to mishandling or something)

I'm not sure the plastic stand is soft enough to be swayed by the hot water method, you might need something a bit more direct and potentially dangerous. Probably one of those heat guns that look like hair dryers.

Sometimes there's a bit of a rough plastic burr on top of the stand where it goes into the keyhole which might be the problem, that should be easy to fix with a knife.

If it's the actual keyhole, I'm not sure I'd advocate surgery on your model and it might be worth asking FFG for a swap. Their customer service is pretty good. If that's a non-starter, perhaps consider some sort of filler in the keyhole to level it out? You need to find what component is 'off' really.

Try to wiggle the clear plastic keyhole on the bottom off the mini. Then see if it fits in the stand the way you like. If not, put the clear keyhole back on but superglue it carefully to correct the lean.

Thanks for the advice, friends. I did indeed email FFG with a pic of the lean compared to my VSD and now I have a new support fin headed to me, fingers crossed this fixes my problem and my ISD is soon vaporizing Rebel fleets on the straight and level as it should be!