Modeling question

[Lizardman Bell]

Morning people,

Quick question about pinning. I am managing to get my army painted and I need to pin some of the models as I don't want to glue them otherwise they won't fit in my case but don't really have a club about pinning or where I can buy the stuff to do it.

Any suggestions?

Bell 

[Draig]

All you really need is a pin vice (modelling drill) and some paper clips. Any decent hobby store should have a good small drill you can use. For larger metal models Brass Rod may be preferable, but for 90% of things, paperclips are just fine.

What I generally do is check the fit first with no glue. Make sure the parts sit as you want them to and have a fiddle to see how you want them to fit. Then I stick a dab of white paint on an area that will contact and press the parts together. This gives you a mark on your two spots to drill.

Then drill into one piece, as centrally as possible. Main thing to watch out for is the angle of the hole. You want to keep it as straight as you can until your comfortable enough to do bent pins.

Next cut a 'pin' out of a straightened paperclip. The weight of the parts of the model will dictate the length, but usually about 5mm of overlap on each side is fine. Drill a hole in one piece centered on your white spot and glue the pin inside. Glue another hole in your other piece. Check the fit and, hopefully, you should be good to go.

If you're doing dry pinning to make models easier to transport, be generous with the length of pin and be prepared to have more than one pin per joint. Magnets is a great way to make this easier. Instead of drilling for a paperclip, you just drill a larger hole to take a magnet.

[cunningmatt]

I'd second all that advice, a vice is quite useful too, though I find a large blob of blu-tac/white-tac does the job quite well too.

[fatolaf]

1mm drill bits is what you want on a hand drill

[Lizardman Bell]

thanks guys. ill go shopping this weekend for the stuff and will put a photo up with the finished thing