Bendy Metal

Started by Heedless Horseman, 23 July 2017, 01:15:59 AM

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Heedless Horseman

Is there any treatment for easily bent metal parts such as gun barrels or pikes? Doubt it, or we would all be doing it!
I am thinking about some 1/285 ASU85s form CinC...their metal is VERY bendy as pretty much true to scale...more so than GHQ.
All I can think of is coating with PVA...will help keep paint on...but this would not 'harden' metal...and will turn guns into tree trunks. Can only base to protect AFAIK.
Just wondering if there COULD be any easy chemical treatment to harden metal miniatures? Heat obviously will not work...will melt rather than temper! Lead...and therefore pewter...should be fairly inert, so anything like a vinegar bath should have no effect. (Works for Conkers!   ;D  )
Bit of a stupid question, really...'bendy pikes' will have been well researched before, but...massive potential for some crazed garden shed professor or alchemist to turn lead into 'gold'!   ;)   ;)
(40 Yrs ago. I should have been an Angry Young Man... but wasn't.
Now... I am an Old B******! )  ;)

Leon

I've not heard of anything 'alchemist'y over the years.  I've used those pliers you use for trimming insulation off copper wire, with the varying sized circular cutouts along the pincers?  Find a groove that fits the pike and then carefully pull it upwards away from the figure.  It's not a perfect method and doesn't always get the minor kinks out but it gets the pike pointing the right direction again!
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Mako

A bit fiddly, if muzzle breaks are involved, or the guns are tapered, but you can use spring-steel rod, of various sizes, to replace the guns.

Just cut to size and replace.  I'd hate to try to drill out, and glue on muzzle brakes, but imagine some may do that too.

Some people were also experimenting with that new, U/V glue, that solidifies when you hold that light to it.  Experiments sounded promising, so perhaps worth trying first, or switch to GHQ, Scotia, etc..

cameronian

Don't buy your daughters a pony, buy them heroin instead, its cheaper and ultimately less addictive.

FierceKitty

Quote from: cameronian on 08 August 2017, 07:08:08 PM
Handle carefully ?

In my unhappy experience, it's handling by other people that damages figures. One was so regular an offender that he ended up excluded from invitations to our Friday evening games.
I don't drink coffee to wake up. I wake up to drink coffee.

cameronian

Not an LGBTQ friendly club then .... I mean excluding benders .... I'll get my coat
Don't buy your daughters a pony, buy them heroin instead, its cheaper and ultimately less addictive.