Assembling Vik

[Buck Dog]

Hello,

I picked up the Viks at the weekend, which are my first Malifaux minis. Having spent some time on the forums, I have seen a few people complain about putting the Sword Mistress together, but not much constructive advice on how to actually do it.

I was just wondering how others have put Vik together - is glue good enough, or should I go for pinning ?

If pinning is the answer, then any tips on how to do it, or what tools I need to do it would be gratefully received - I am used to putting together big fat GW plastic kits, so the world of pinning is rather new to me. I have seen some articles on how to pin, but most of them seem to be about tanks or large monsters, and nothing as delicate as the lovely Vik.

Cheers

Buck

[Jimmy35]

I wanted to pin mine, but with the joints being so incredibly small I just glued them with superglue. They came apart in transit to the first gaming session so I glued it again, this also broke so I cleaned it up a bit and glued it with a small spot of 90 second araldite. I have been really careful with it, but it hasn't come apart yet... touch wood.

[Grim]

It is very painful to put together, very frustrating... I pinned my Sword Mistress using .020 (.51mm) brass rod and corresponding sized drill bit. Use a manual pin vise (don't use a dremmel). Bits and rods were purchased at a local hobby store (not gaming store). Hope this helps...

[Flikfutch87]

I just put her together myself over the weekend. She was definitely tough, and I ended up pulling the metal line off of her and supergluing her feet to the base. I was able to glue everything on, but I'm guessing at least one of her arms will come off at some point.

[fluxcore]

So far mine has been quite solid with just superglue, to the point where I'm not entirely happy with the pose but they won't "accidentally" come off easily enough for me to reposition them

[rdilgart]

What a friend of mine did for my Vik mini is pinned the hands, but he changed the direction of the swords and crossed them over resting one of them on her leg for a spot to glue it. it has help up wonderfully

[Inquisitor Wall]

For mine, I bent the arms out slightly to get a better angle for pinning, then bent them back once they were pinned. I used the Privateer Press pin drill, with their standard bit and brass rod.

The model has not broken in a couple months.

[Massaen]

When i glued the hands on, i turned the wrists out so the sword pommels rested on her ... ahem... bum. that way you get an extra contact point for the glue.

[Buck Dog]

Well after two broken drill bits, a cut finger, a slightly damaged chair (thanks to a dropped bottle of super glue), and a whole lot of bad language, I thought that I had finally cracked it.... and then both of her hands dropped off :irked:

As I have got my first game tomorrow I had to rush things in the end, and cheated slightly - I crossed her arms in front of her legs, so that I had something else to glue the swords too. It looks ok, but I am not sure how I am going to paint her legs now... I think I will probably end up buying a another Vik, as I drilled through one of her hands anyway... I guess I shouldn't have used Vik as my first attempt at pinning !

[JMGraham]

I just had a go at assembling Vik last night. Geh. Got the right hand pinned no problem, but had the angle wrong on the left hand and ended up popping out of the side (making a groove rather than a hole). Things seem to be pretty stable right now, and my ugly mistake should be hidden once I get her painted.

Jim

[hylentor]

If its any consolation, I mangled the first attempt at pinning small hands that I did (Privateer's Alexia Ciannor).

you need three things:

1. very small drill bit (or two - use a few sizes smaller for a starter hole. That can make all the difference in a tight working area)

2. a very good eye for estimating position (the hands/wrists are too small for the dab-of-paint trick with pinning - imo, of course)

3. very very steady hands

My Vik, while suffering more than her fair share of cursing, managed to go together fine... outside of forgetting to drill in the wrists before I put her on the base (d'oh).

I was actually tempted to cross swords just for looks, but ended up not doing so due to how I had to hold the thing to dry...

[macgowan]

I use a sharp x-acto blade and put an X where I want the hole. I haven't screwed up a pin job since.

[JMGraham]

I use a sharp x-acto blade and put an X where I want the hole. I haven't screwed up a pin job since.

A starter hole can also be made with a push pin pretty effectively. Of course, that still doesn't stop me ...

Jim

[dahli.llama]

I just scuffed up the areas where I would glue the hands and put a drop on Crazy Glue on each. I haven't handled her all that much, but so far she has held up well.

I don't have a small enough drill for them at the moment, which is something I need to rectify so I can pin them to their bases eventually.

[Heldrak]

Please pardon the threadomancy, but since I happened to be working on a Viktoria Swordmistress figure recently, I thought it might be helpful to post some WIP photos. Here is a long shot of the complete figure from the front:

Here is a closeup of both wrists from the front:

Here is a closeup of both wrists from the back:

Here is a closeup of her right wrist from the side:

Here is a closeup of her left wrist from the side:

In practice, I pinned both wrists and superglued them, then enhanced her wrist armor with a small amount of green stuff to strengthen the joints. As many folk do, I also anchored the hilts of her blades to her buttocks for extra support. The smudge of red on her right buttock in the photograph is superglue. (I introduce a coloring agent into my superglue to thicken it, and so I can see where it is going better). I also pinned her bundled swords to her back as well.

She is very difficult to assemble. The surface area for pins on her wrists and hands is maddeningly small. You'll note that I had to re-sculpt the palm of her right hand with green stuff because the pin broke through into the hand. When I attached her swords, my primary concern was that she appear to be holding her wrists at a natural angle. While I achieved this, it did result in her holding her swords in a rather asymmetrical manner. In a perfect world, I would re-master the figure as a single-piece casting, with her swords attached at the wrist and held symmetrically.

Edited July 18, 2010 by Heldrak

[Headcase2]

I'm surprised this trick hasn't been mentioned yet, I use it on nearly all my hard-to-assemble models:

Take a little bit of green stuff (a really, really tiny little bit, like a cubic millimeter or two at the most for a surface this small) and place it on one of the parts you want to glue. Then put super glue on the other end, gently push them together, hold for three seconds, release and... voilà! Carefully clear away any excess putty with a modelling knife before the glue completely hardens it. This hardening process is accelerated considerably by the super glue, so you have about a minute, tops. Don't wait too long or you'll have to remove the hardened putty, which is far more difficult.

Try it, it's the easiest way to assemble a model, and it creates a firm bond.

A second trick is "dual sealing". After you've glued the model together you take your super glue (with brush, it's very inmportant to get super glue with a brush for miniature assembly!) and you just brush a bit of glue onto the joints you're unsure about. The glue will pool in the seam; just clean of the rest of the glue with a tissue or you'll flatten out some of the detail on your model. The second bond makes your miniatures a lot sturdier.

Hope this helps. I didn't pin my swordmistress's hands at all, and she's survived at least a dozen battles unharmed (well, mini-wise anyway).

Edited July 18, 2010 by Headcase2

[Tauboy]

headcase2's advice is spot on, I did similar for my Vik and have had no problems

it's also worth getting superglue activator and use that to set the inital glue bound when you first attach the hand (may need a second person to apply the activator whilst you hold the model and the arm in place)

[hylentor]

The downside to activator is that the bond will be a bit weaker than if you let it dry on its own. I've actually taken to not hitting anything small with activator anymore after regluing a few to many minis - not even factoring the higher glue-self-to-mini rate activating on a small part has

I will have to try that glue/greenstuff tip though - looks like it could work well.