Plastic Assembly Thoughts!

[Hateful Darkblack]

Just got my package in the mail yesterday, and I'm really excited. I already assembled most of the figures.

Here are my first impressions, in bullet points:

• The figures are all gorgeous and I love the detail and the art.
  
• I really hate plastic glue. Enough so that my friends have starts making photocopies of a plastic glue label and leaving them around for me as a prank. Seriously.
  
• The mold lines are noticeable and need a little filing. More so than Lazarus, which I had assembled before.
  
• I'm using the Wyrd Asian Zen base inserts. They look nice with the Rail Crew, and they give the miniatures a good heft. I hope the base inserts remain available in metal.
  
• One of the Rail Workers (the one with the clockwork leg) is a mirror image of the picture on the box cover. I was using that picture as a guide, so I got confused until I realized.
  
• Don't just clip Mei Feng's head off the sprue. The piece actually includes her neck and chest, which look like they might just be a little connector tag. I had to glue it back together which still looks a little awkward.
  
• Kang is amazing.
  
• Several guys from the rail crew have different options. It would have been nice to get an instruction sheet, like Lazarus had, so I would know which pieces are options and which pieces actually go on a different model. But I figured it out eventually.
  
• The Metal Gamin look so lively! And their scrap metal hula skirt loincloths are awesome.
  
• The Rail Golem is very menacing. You have to balance him on his forward foot.
  
• Willie the Demolitionist is hilarious. Wheelbarrow of Doom!
  
• The Hanging Trees look amazing, but they need some filing and green stuff. There are gaps between pieces. Once those get green stuff, I'm confident they'll look amazing. All the little vultures make it even better.
  
• It's awesome the way the hanged bodies dangle from flexible plastic. But be careful: if you're rough with them, the rope can break. If it does, plastic glue seems to reattach it just fine.
  

Later, I'll assemble the Dark Debts box and put up my impressions if these are helpful.

Edited September 17, 2012 by Hateful Darkblack

[Dracomax]

1. Assembling plastic for the first time myself, I have a few thoughts to add: Plastic glue doesn't seem to work nearly as well as superglue/activator on metal. I am informed that the glue works much better on GW plastic than it did on the Rail Golem.

2. I hate the Rail Golem's wrists. they did not seem to fit quite right, which may have resulted in my problems for point 1.. other than that, the model looks amazing, but I get no sense of size like I do with the peacekeeper. It's just way too light.

3. I should really use an x-acto knife, rather than the clippers I use for getting metal bits off. I need to remember I can use an x-acto knife on plastic.

[Hateful Darkblack]

Plastic glue just doesn't work on metal at all, AFAIK.

[Dracomax]

I meant plastic glue on plastic vs. superglue on metal.

[decker_cky]

I meant plastic glue on plastic vs. superglue on metal.

It takes longer to dry, but the bond is much stronger than superglue.

[Hateful Darkblack]

Yeah, that's true. And they're different. With superglue you can sort of assume that the glue will be fairly liquid at first and just seep into cracks on its own. Plastic glue likes to form a spherical blob and if you want it in a gap you need to put it on both surfaces beforehand.

[Keltheos]

Gluing tip: I always give my plastics a quick bath in some warmish soapy water before trying to glue/prime. Tends to help clean off any residues left from the forming process.

Not every sprue needs it, but I've been annoyed when I don't enough times to make it a standard step in model building for me. (Same goes for metals and resins these days)

[Tombanjo]

Thanks for the info and tips, very timely as mine just arrived today (yay!) I hear a lot of people talking about filling gaps with green stuff. I assume they are referencing the two part putty. Makes sense to use for metal minis, but has anyone tried putty for plastic models. Squadron makes a white and a green putty and Testors has one as well. I use this stuff on other plastic models with good success. It is possible to thin it with a little liquid plastic model cement and get a little extra working time, more flexibility for really small gaps and a smooth surface when you're done. Should work fine for these figures.

Dave

[decker_cky]

Traditionally filling gaps with green stuff would be a two part putty, but I'd get some liquid green stuff, which is different but similar coloured, and is essentially specialized for filling gaps easily, whereas real green stuff is more versatile but more work. I only use real green stuff for things I want to sculpt and for bigger gaps.

[Dracomax]

I would think the liquid greenstuff would work better with these minis, myself, due to the small cracks left at times. They are far too small for me to be comfortable using regular greenstuff, but large enough to be noticeable.

[Hateful Darkblack]

Liquid greenstuff and a warm wash beforehand! Got it!

Thanks for the advice, folks! I included my impressions, and then got a lot of great advice! Woo!

[Mirarii]

You don't need to have instructions to know which piece goes with which. Each piece has a letter above it corresponding to the other pieces of that figure.

[Tombanjo]

You don't need to have instructions to know which piece goes with which. Each piece has a letter above it corresponding to the other pieces of that figure.

is there a secret code...well done

<edit> you theory holds true to some extent but I don't see any code on the archers set. BTW: on the archers detail looks fine, but I echo previous advice...use an x-acto to remove the parts..esp the heads as they have a bit of neck section. now I gotta pull a few hairs for bowstrings

Dave

Edited September 7, 2012 by Tombanjo

[Hateful Darkblack]

Thoughts after assembling the Dark Debts crew:

- I washed it in warm soap and water and couldn't tell the difference. But I'm going to keep doing it anyway because I suspect it helps in ways I just don't notice.

- It's hilarious that you don't know what Mr. Tannen has behind his back. More so because there are actually different limbs for different options.

- The two torsos and heads for the female Illuminated with the crazy mouth were confusing. The option for Cthulhu-face is awesome, but I went with triangle-jaw like in the book.

- Filing down bold lines takes an additional cycle for plastic models, more so than for metal models. I just expect it now.

- Filing down the plastic leaves a rough patch where you filed. A thin layer of liquid greenstuff on top of that makes it better again. Thanks for the tip, decker_cky!

- Liquid greenstuff totally does the trick for all the gaps and so on that I saw.

- Knowing that the letters correspond to models made everything better. Thanks for pointing that out, Miraril!

- Once again, I screwed up with model's neck. Once again, it's a female model standing up straight. Like my Mei Feng, my standing-up Beckoner looks a little funny because her neck is glued in wrong. That's my fault, not Wyrd's, for sure.

- The zigzag gap of Jakob Lynch's waistcoat looks a little too wide, so I put greenstuff in it and it looks better.

- The gap between Mr. Graves' arms and his torso, on the other hand, just make him look like he's wearing a vest and an overshirt and stuffed into it more than he can really fit.

- If I every cosplay Malifaux, it will be as Mr. Graves. Because he's got about the same build that I do.

[osoi]

Just a tip with flash removal on plastic, scrape a scalpel back along the line and it will remove cleaner and quicker than filing it off. A new blade works best.

[fishtank]

I just ran some trials with bits of sprue and am dissappointed to find that GW's Plastic glue - to the best of my knowledge the only one I have easy access to, though I can check local craft shops for an alternate brand - is almost useless on the Wyrd plastics. I was getting a very weak, wobbly and brittle bond. No use at all.

Will probably have to resort to superglue then. A shame with so many very, very small parts.

[Cunning]

I tend to find GW glues pretty poor in general to be honest.

[Joel]

Their thin plastic glue is better than their think one generally. However, I still went with superglue for Lazarus due to wanting to retain some posability.

[96p]

there's nothing as good as:

to glue plastic !

[fishtank]

Will try and track down some of the Revell stuff. There are a couple of toy shops near here that sell airfix models and the like. They MIGHT have it.

[daemonkin]

Revell plastic glue with brush applicator is fantastic. Bond got stronger over the course of 24 hours.

D.

[decker_cky]

I'm using army painter plastic glue and it seems to be doing a good job.

[Hateful Darkblack]

Okay, just got the Misaki box in the mail and started assembling! I have thoughts, once again!

Thoughts after mostly assembling it:

- They're so very dramatic! More so than even the other box sets I have. Misaki is in a weird and threatening pose. Shang's perched to strike. The Torakage look like they're sneaking up on you. Really, all of them feel like they're in motion.

- The detail is amazing. The mold lines are hard to spot. I assembled this at the same time as two Dead Doxy models, and the high detail of the plastic really shows.

- I'm still bad at gluing things with plastic glue.

- I think the thing that bugs me most about plastic glue (other than the little pictures of it that my friends are still hiding around for me) is that it's so unforgiving. If you put too much superglue on a model or put it in the wrong place, at worst you can scrape it off, and at best, you'll have reinforced joints. If you put too much plastic glue on a model, it'll turn your details into sludge.

- The greater the distance between the part that connects to the sprue and the part that connects to other pieces, the happier I am.

- Someone recommended using an exacto knife for mold lines, and I have to admit that I'm intimidated by exacto knives. In a weird way, I blame the American public school system. Somewhere in crafts classes in junior high, I learned that exacto knives were the most dangerous thing ever, and it stuck with me. I own a shotgun in real life and handle it carefully; somehow I'm more intimidated by handling an exacto blade than my shotgun.

- The Torakage would actually make excellent Coryphee proxies. So if your FLGS runs out of metal models and you want to play a Coryphee, use the Torakage with the blades.

- There's a Torakage piece where you have to glue a thin little piece of chain onto a weapon. When I saw that I thought it was going to be impossible. It was actually really easy and straightforward. Yay plastic!

- Ototo is frightening and dynamic! I love that his impact gets its own piece, but I haven't decided whether or not to use it. On the other hand, if you just sit him down without it, it kinda looks like he's fishing.

- There's a real risk of being unable to glue a piece into place because other pieces (chains, limbs, tail fire, bandanas, etc.) are in the way.

- When assembling, start with the pieces toward the middle and work out. At first I was starting with the big core pieces and then adding the smaller fiddly bits, but I don't think that's the right way to go. Start with the core and add stuff outward.

- I clip off the whole connector to the sprue. Then I clip that off once I figure out how it connects to the next piece. This keeps me out of trouble.

- I'm considering doing a different pose for Misaki instead of the one shown. I think I can make her look like she's doing midair splits with the same pose and her arms forward instead. I'll post how it looks.

- Misaki looks so graceful and threatening!

- Shang's tail is wild and chaotic and heavier than Shang. I expect gluing to the base will alleviate any balance problems. I totally love Shang's tail. And his action pose.

- I really like it that each connection has a different shape so that you can't put pieces on in the wrong place. It would be even better if they were all non-circular (probably square) so that you got the orientation right too.

- Nathan's color-coded chart was an amazing wonderful lifesafe. Thanks, Nathan!

Edited September 20, 2012 by Hateful Darkblack

[decker_cky]

- I clip off the whole connector to the sprue. Then I clip that off once I figure out how it connects to the next piece. This keeps me out of trouble.

Agree with this entirely. I need to do gap filling on one of Mei Fengs shoulders because I missed a tap, and I was going over the models slowly trying to avoid missing the tabs.

[Kuro]

- Someone recommended using an exacto knife for mold lines, and I have to admit that I'm intimidated by exacto knives. In a weird way, I blame the American public school system. Somewhere in crafts classes in junior high, I learned that exacto knives were the most dangerous thing ever, and it stuck with me. I own a shotgun in real life and handle it carefully; somehow I'm more intimidated by handling an exacto blade than my shotgun.

You could always try to remove the mold lines with a shot gun. Youtube exists for a reason!

Anyways, just be patient and you'll get better with plastic. I grew up putting together models planes and tanks, so I guess I learned the fundamentals early in life. Use very little glue, and be certain of exactly where you want things to go.