At this point, I decided to do something drastic:
Since I had not glued the front of the torso on the model, I was able to use a wire-gauge pin vise and drill in behind the magnet - pushing it out.
It turns out that that particular setting was simply wedged in too tight. Even when I went to re-glue the magnet in correctly, I had to use a bit more pressure to get it back into the hole.
I guess the lesson here is to always give yourself at least a tiny bit of wiggle room. It makes things easier to work with. Well, that and rubbing alcohol seems to work for removing super glue bonds between metal and plastic.
Hey there Paul, this is Louis from your Google Wave D&D 4E game here.
ReplyDeleteAwhile back I was having similar problems removing dried super glue from a pewter Reaper miniature and I wanted to chime in with my own experience.
I too tried the warm water method (and even soaked the miniature in a Simple Green solution, which didn't do much at all but remove some of the finish). In the end I had to just chip away at the remaining gunk with an X-acto knife I had laying around, and while it wasn't the most graceful of methods I can't deny that it did the job.
Another problem with the miniature I have is there's this nasty gap between the two segments I want to connect. I asked around a bit and it sounds like epoxy glue would work nicely for both sticking the pieces together and filling the gap, and hopefully I can paint over it later to mask the glue.
Of course I'm not very experienced with miniatures at all, so I was wondering if you had any tips on the matter. Thanks in advance!
- Louis
Hey Louis!
ReplyDeleteI find that removing a bond between two metal pieces is the easiest. Usually you can just snap them apart and, like you said, use your hobby knife to clean it up. I would add using a file, as well. I have a nice set of jeweler's files I picked up at Michael's on the cheap, as well as an old nail file with a finer grit. They work well on both plastic and the soft pewter metal.
If the to parts are pinned to together, it's a bit harder to separate, but still pretty much the same process. Just make sure you like the position before you pin!
As for gaps, I use the "Green Stuff" epoxy (Kneadatite) that Games Workshop advertises. You can get a variety of quantities at better prices from different places - just look around. Ebay and Amazon are good places to start. Having a sculpting tool is useful here, but certainly not necessary.
The incredibly talented Dave Taylor uses a Bondo filler on his scratch built models, but I don't have any personal experience with the stuff. Check out: http://davetaylorminiatures.blogspot.com/2009/10/expanding-motor-pool.html for some models he used it on.