Basing those pesky Airfix horses

[Paul]

...or better to say.....GETTING THE BLOODY THINGS TO STAND UP FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME!!!

The poxy pegs virtually never fit in the holes on the bases provided. Either the plastic is so brittle it snaps with drilling and pinning, the legs are way too thin anyway Glueing??? The surface areas are too small to take the glue and the plastic doesn´t bond anyway.
So after bashing several of them with an axe...I thought of this

Here´s one of the sly little b****rs, the look in it´s eyes suggest, "HA!, you´ll never stick me down"



But no! My torture kit sorry! tool kit comes out.
Here, a candle, bit of a wine cork, pre-made base and some very thin steel wire.



Cut off a length of wire , about 4cms long and stick it in the cork, the cork now becomes a handle. Heat up the wire and just hold it against one of the nags legs that would have ground contact anyway. This must be done carefully as not to melt the leg into a disfigured clumpfoot (hoof) and as the plastic and pin cool down both have to be held firmly without movement so as not to bend the leg from it´s original position.



The "rut" formed on the beasties leg can now be filled with whatever, wood glue, green stuff etc. A hole is then made with a needle in the appropiate place on the base .........



The pin on the horses leg is now cut to length, stuck in the hole and then any other ground contacting hooves stuck with high impact adhesive.



Ok they are not the most wonderfull nags available, but they still have thier uses.

[Peter]

Nice tutorial Paul

But I also think about a trick Martin told me once. Put water on the base, and super glue on the horse feet and then push it on. Works fine for me.

[Paul]

Tried both of them, niether worked Thanks anyway.

[ColeF]

I've got a third option: Chuck 'em out the window. Works like a charm.

[musketier]

attaching them to bottle rockets works well too.

[zzed]

You can make your own base from inexpensive Milliput, and while it is still soft enough, stick a horse to it. Just not make too thin base, or otherwise it could be broken. 3 mm in height will be fine.

[Paul]

You can make your own base from inexpensive Milliput, and while it is still soft enough, stick a horse to it. Just not make too thin base, or otherwise it could be broken. 3 mm in height will be fine.

Good idea. I did this with very strong wood glue. I let it go a bit pudding like then stuck the beast into it.
Problem number one, some of the nags are balanced in such a way they tip over and they need supporting (Coles solution came to mind )
Problem number two, Miliput is expensive, that´s why I tried glue afterwards, the nag kept needing support anyway and the little pegs on its hooves weren´t long enough to have enough support from the Milliput anyway ( Randalls solution came to mind )

The way with metal pins was (is) the cheapest, quickest and most effective so far.

[zzed]

sorry Paul, I just have noticed that the horse has his both left legs raised
he would probably fall in a real life too in this circumstances

perhaps some temporarily use of toothpick/s (a part of it) might be helpful here

whatsoever, a hard task for any modeller indeed...

but why did you choose to paint something like that anyway?

some kind of deed?

[Paul]

sorry Paul, I just have noticed that the horse has his both left legs raised
he would probably fall in a real life too in this circumstances

perhaps some temporarily use of toothpick/s (a part of it) might be helpful here

whatsoever, a hard task for any modeller indeed...

but why did you choose to paint something like that anyway?

some kind of deed?

It´s a form of self flagellation for awefull acts in a past life No, it´s because of this;
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5056

Strange as it might seem it is actually quite fun. It gets me painting other periods/themes, (which is why I like the duels) otherwise I would just be painting end to end knights and it helps me with getting a bit better at painting.

The nag shown would actually be supported on three of it´s spindly legs, but the rear right one is a couple of mm´s longer than the front right and back left, which makes the beast unbalanced, even if it was to be just glued or welded. By using the thin bit of wire on the slightly longer leg, it holds it firm and allows at least one of the other two hooves to be glued down. To get it to stay in position whilst it was glueing, I used a clasp knife, set open at the appropiate angle and balanced over the saddle. Sounds odd, I should really put up a photo of that eh??

[zzed]

...The nag shown would actually be supported on three of it´s spindly legs, but the rear right one is a couple of mm´s longer than the front right and back left, which makes the beast unbalanced, even if it was to be just glued or welded. By using the thin bit of wire on the slightly longer leg, it holds it firm and allows at least one of the other two hooves to be glued down. To get it to stay in position whilst it was glueing, I used a clasp knife, set open at the appropiate angle and balanced over the saddle...

so that's why they left one leg a bit longer

[Wheeling Turn]

I use a blob of super glue gel, then stick into and wait......tataaa. when the sand+grit is on the base nobody sees the superglue....

but hey nice idea I will try look like a very stromg bond the ways you suggest basing them..