I’ve been working on my Wolfen army lately. These consist of several large figures on 40mm bases. Each figure is in at least 3 parts (head, torso and legs) and sometimes as many as 5 parts. Since the figures are large and the the pieces are generally heavy (relatively speaking) just simply gluing them doesn’t produce good, long lasting results. The solution is to utilize a technique called pinning.
Pinning is the process of drilling small holes in two parts to be connected and gluing in a wire to help support them. What you need are wire (found at hardware stores as either musical wire or piano wire – any stiff wire will do but I suggest something along the lines of 0.032″ wire. I think the brand I used was K&S. It is also sometimes refer ed to as Hobby Wire. Most likely the person behind the counter at Home Depot or Ace Hardware will have no clue what you are talking about. I wasn’t able to find it at Home Depot. Lowes might have it. In other countries if you find it place a comment here on where you got it from.
You will also need what is called a Pin Vice. This is a small drill with a globular handle that fits in the palm of your hand. You can manipulate the drill with your forefinger and thumb by turning a wheel. I suppose they call it a Pin Vice because it clamps on to the drill bit much like a vice would clamp a pin… sorta reaching here!
It is easy to drill out pewter – easier than you might think actually. Use heavy snips to cut short length of the wire. By short I mean a quarter inch to a half inch! 8-12mm for those on the metric system. The hole has to be put on both pieces where they will join. One thing you will learn is you can get creative here and create poses that would not be possible otherwise. The strength that pinning gives to your multi-part models is the primary reason for doing it but the creative aspect of it is also quite compelling and may lead you to pin and modify models that don’t need it.
Once you have both holes drilled and a cut piece of wire insert the wire into one of the pieces and glue. Let this sit for the entire cure time of the glue. When it is set try placing the pinned piece into the join where it is too go. What you may find is that the other hole is not deep enough. You have two choices. One is to snip the wire stub down a bit. The other is to drill out the reciprocal hole a bit more. There are many factors in this decision. The first is, can you find enough purchase on the pin to snip it? The other is can you drill deeper without threatening to burst through the model. In rare occasions you may have to do both techniques. As you get better you will have to make adjustments less because you will get better at estimating how they fit.
As you can see in the slide show I’ve managed to assemble my models. The total time for those three models was about 2 hours. There was a lot of chatting and kibitzing as I did it as games were being played around me at the time I was doing it. I chose to do it at the club because that is where I could get the most helpful advice!
I hope this was helpful to someone. I’ll continue to produce information on how these models progress from box to tabletop so be sure to return to this blog and see how they turn out.