Hi,
Sometime ago a spended a few hours to make a suitable (and cheap) device to comfort my painting. I must admit that this problem was already "cooking" considerable tim in my brain. I added some photo's so everything will be very clear.
Well, here I go: I cutted some plates of 50mm square in 3mm thick plasticard. Then I drilled four holes in the corners and one hole in the middle (6mm wide). Over the hole in the middle a nut for bolts of 6 mm wide is glued and puttied. Make sure the nut sits very firm!
Next I bought some standard square timber wood (43 x 43 mm) in the local warehouse of which I sawed some blocks of 30 mm high. The underside of the block is hollowed out. The first two photos (clickable thumbnails) shows both parts finished in this state:
The plasticard is screwed onto the underside of the wooden block with the nut on the inside. That's why the block was hollowed out a bit. The plasticard protrudes on all four sides. Next your figure can be secured onto the upper side of the block with some pins in the drilled out feet. To make sure the figure sits firm I always put some Magic Sculp under the feet.
In the same warehouse I also bought a handle for a chissel or file. This handle was drilled to receive a long bolt of 6mm wide. The bolt was secured with epoxy glue and some putty and protrudes only 5 mm out of the handle. The underside of the handle was also hollowed out.
Now, when you gonna paint the figure you simply screw the handle on the underside of the block to get a firm and balanced grip.
To allow some intervals while painting I constructed a flat MDF plate of 18 mm thick and 100 mm square. In the middle of the plate I drilled a hole and glued a bolt of 6 mm in it to accomodate the drilled out underside of the handle. This allows a safe setting aside of your figure.
The protruding plasticard serves in my case also to secure the figure on my Amati Rotopaint (which isn't in production anymore I think). The rotopaint is a handy accesory when you have to paint minute detail.
The nut on the inside of the plasticard has yet another goal when travelling with my figures to the club meetings or competitions.
I sawed from the same MDF plate a piece that fits snuggly into my travelling box. Into the plate I drilled some holes in which I glued and puttied some short bolts of 6 mm allowing them to protrude around 5 mm.
The bolts allowes to screw the temporary block onto it avoiding any possibility of dammaging your precious figure.
I also glue a nut in the underside of all the definite bases of my figures which allow fastening onto the same plate, and following out of it a secure travelling. By using this method your done with Blue Tack and stuff like that.
Like I said, it costed me an afternoon of work to accomplish this but it will pay off for the rest of my (hopefully long) modelling days. When the wooden blocks are dammaged (after considerable time) or to much pinned, you screw loose the plasticard and put it on a new block. The combination of the nuts and bolts
makes its possible to interchange from the handle to the plate in just a wink and without any effort.
I hope all of this makes sense.
All the best.
Johan
