I'm starting to look at making my UNSC Fleet table-ready (could I be
making room for a Japanese Fleet now that the rest of the ships are due
out?......only my wallet knows) but after some test fitting, everything fits
OK but the connections are a bit loose.
Since the sections in these ships should all be straight in a line, I was
wondering how others assembled these minis. Did you pin the sections together
to keep them straight? If you didn't pin them, are they looking a bit crooked?
Stuff like that or any other tips anyone has on the assembly of these minis.
Also I'm not thrilled with the command section for the BattleCruiser but I
have an extra Battleship (duplicate wing sections so I can't build it) so I
was going to use that command section modified a bit for my own BC.
> On Wednesday, February 13, 2002, at 11:40 AM, Dean Gundberg wrote:
> Since the sections in these ships should all be straight in a line, I
I've pinned all the multi piece ones Dean - but the pieces aren't
completely straight on (although you have to look close to notice). I'd highly
recommend pinning as the gravity vector is perpendicular to the axis of these
models and there's going to be constant stress in these joints while the
figure are in use.
> Also I'm not thrilled with the command section for the BattleCruiser
> so I
Go for it!
I did not pin my SDN, and it is rather sagging.
http://www.cygnusx1.info/images/ft/shippicts/073_sol_sdn.jpg
The rest (BB and smaller) came out ok, however.
> On 2/13/02 9:40 AM, "Dean Gundberg" <Dean.Gundberg@noridian.com> wrote:
> Since the sections in these ships should all be straight in a line, I
Pin, pin, pin. I'm a very strong advocate of pinning (can you tell ;-),
as it makes SURE that the mini won't break at an inopportune moment.
If only paint jobs were so durable <sigh>
> On 13-Feb-02 at 12:41, Dean Gundberg (Dean.Gundberg@noridian.com) wrote:
> Since the sections in these ships should all be straight in a line, I
I purchased the SDN-X when it first came out. I used good two part
epoxy
and epoxied it together. I then half-way painted it and it has been
on a shelf ever since. Recently I went back to finish it as I have found
people willing to play. It broke at one of the epoxy joints. I'm going to pin
it. This is the first epoxy joint I've ever had fail. I think the weight and
stress just finally was more than the small epoxy surface area could hold.
On 2/13/02 10:03 AM, "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)"
> Schoon wrote:
I was thinking of that too, drilling straight through the middle sections and
using a brass rod or other straight wire as a spine for the ship and wondered
if anyone had done this yet. I just worry about keeping all the holes
straight, but maybe if I start at either end of a section and meet in the
middle there would be less chance of an error and messing up the part. I did
something similar for my B5Wars Omega minis so I could get the habitat section
to rotate and I haven't had any problems with them at all.
> On 13-Feb-02 at 12:41, Dean Gundberg (Dean.Gundberg@noridian.com)
wrote:
> Since the sections in these ships should all be straight in a line, I
Our tradestand display ones have survived pretty well with just superglued
joints (no pinning at all), despite being shaken the hell out of in the back
of the van for an average of six hours driving to each show, over a dozen
times a year! In all that movement, the only casualty I've had was the hangar
block of the light carrier coming adrift from the wing section on one trip.
Just out of curiosity, are the ones that are giving trouble direct from us in
the UK, or are they GeoHex made ones? I'm wondering if the extra "generation"
separating the US castings from the UK masters accounts for
the looser fit of the peg-and-sleeve joints, as most of ours seem to be
quite tight..... (and NO, I'm not touching that joke with someone else's
ten foot pole.....) ;-)
> On 13-Feb-02 at 14:00, Ground Zero Games (jon@gzg.keme.co.uk) wrote:
> Just out of curiosity, are the ones that are giving trouble direct
You sent me this one from the UK about a day after the first pictures were
available.:)
Here is a tedious way to make sure the holes line up, but at least it works. I
got it from a friend on another group.
Drill one of the holes to the depth you need it to be. But a piece of
the wire you're going to use to pin it so that it's _just_ long enough
to stick out of the hole. Put a generous amount of a bright-colored
paint on that wire and then line up the parts your pinning together, applying
extra pressure once done to transfer more paint to the
un-drilled piece.
Then drill where paint is, double-checking the alignment when the 2nd
hole is still shallow.
Once done, pin and glue as normal.
--Flak
> On Wed, 2002-02-13 at 13:47, Dean Gundberg wrote:
> Jon (GZG) wrote:
The ones I have are GeoHex versions from the first batch they did after they
got the masters. The peg fits into the sleeve with some play and some are
loose enough for maybe a 10-15 degree angle from straight with the peg
still in the sleeve.
> Jon (GZG) wrote:
OK, this is going to be difficult to describe in words but please bear with
me..... with our display ones, I made sure that the peg was filed down
slightly shorter than the depth of the sleeve, and the sleeve had a nicely
squared-off end (as viewed from side and top); this means that most of
the glueing area is actually the end of the sleeve to the next component of
the hull, with the peg just acting as a locator, rather than the peg itself
taking all the strain. Does that make any sense?
> Here is a tedious way to make sure the holes line up, but at least it
How thick wire? I've been fortunate enough not to have to do this with my
Islamic Fed ships but i suspect some of the others will require it.
> On 2/13/02 10:47 AM, "Dean Gundberg" <Dean.Gundberg@noridian.com> wrote:
> I was even thinking of running a piece of coat hanger wire
OK, here's the trick (or at least one of them): make sure the hole you drill
is slightly bigger than the wire you use, and when building, do it vertically.
It takes a bit of attention to make sure it's straight, but the larger hole
gives you a bit of play in case you're "drilling challenged"
;-)
> At 01:03 13/02/02 -0500, you wrote:
I used Selley's Super Glue Gel and took my time in assembly, and in a fit of
madness I took all the shavings from filing flash away form miniatures and
mixed that into the gel as well. Whether that has helped? Who knows
:)
but so far there hasn't been any pinning for my UNSC ships.
Cheers
> Dean Gundberg wrote:
Getting the Japanese fleet forced the assembly of the IF ships that I had in
storage.
> Since the sections in these ships should all be straight in a line, I
I think you have to pin the UNSC ships, though I don't know that you have to
go to the same level that I did in the assembly. I used a single rod through
the main axis for all the ships larger than DD. Only one of the complete fleet
has visible problems in the main axis but that was a modified BB which
received cargo module. It was difficult and lining all the pieces up was a
pain but I'm very pleased with the end results.
> Also I'm not thrilled with the command section for the BattleCruiser
so I
> was going to use that command section modified a bit for my own BC.
I have to admit that I use the CA front for the Battle Cruiser, as I thought
the BC command section was out of place within the fleet.
Laserlight Wonders:
> How thick wire?
I've pinned a ton of figures together over the years, and use brass rod
available from hobby/model-railroad stores to pin with. My friend Dave
uses paperclips (plain metal ones).
Either works really well, and you don't need particularly thick wire,
especially if you put 2 or 3 pins in a major joint. This does not take long,
at all, and using the "paint on the end of the pin" method, alignment isn't
very difficult. You just have to be careful when you drill.
The brass rod I use is tiny - got to be 1/32" or so, I imagine. I
forget
the guage when I bought it (0.020" or 0.010" or something - don't know
if it had a guage size mentioned). I could dig a bit out and stick it in my
vernier calipers if you really need to know...:)
Go with paperclips. They work really well, and they're *cheap*. The trick
is to get a good drill bit of the right size - just a hair over the size
of
the pin. That gives some space for the cyanoacrylate glue in the hole -
you don't end up scraping all the glue off as you slip the pin in place into
the hole.
Clothes hanger wire would be a *huge* mission - difficult to drill the
hole through all the pieces accurately, hard on the miniature (big hole), etc.
And entirely unnecessary, I think. Can be done with much thinner wire, if
stiff.
[quoted original message omitted]
I guess the thickness of the wire would depend on how much support you want.
Basically, whatever thickness you want to use. You do want to make sure the
wire is stiff, and that the drill bit is only slightly larger than the wire,
so that the fit is snug.
I prefer using brass rod of different diameters, but some people have
used anything from coat-hanger wire to paper clips for pinning models
together.