I have been writing a short mini-series of articles to help assist me with some resin kit reviews I'm doing. I figured that instead of boring my more experienced builders with material that they already know, or repeating the same helpful hints in article after article, it would be far easier to just reference these smaller articles like footnotes in any reviews that require some extra advice.
This is the last article in the series for now and it is more of a Do It Yourself article that covers making stands for your smaller models.
Some resin kits come with a base to make a stand for your ship. However, I have yet to find a garage kit maker that has supplied a rod that goes with the base. This is probably because making the rods is a bit time consuming and every modeler has thier own preference on how tall of a stand they may want.
I like my stands to hold the ship about 2 inches of the ground so this method I'm about to show works really well for me. You could of course modify the length to your liking, but as you will see, you'll go through more of the base materials. At two inches, I get two rods for each piece I cut.
The first step is trying to locate a source of sturdy rods that In my case, I found that these little guys were my best friend.
Yes, that's right, that is what is called a Medium Metal Binder Clip and you can get a whole pack of them at Staples for around $3. You can find them HERE. What I did was remove the silver parts and toss/store the black parts. Then using two pairs of pliers, I straightened out the silver part
I then measured and cut the rods in half using a heavy duty wire cutter. This yielded me with two 2 inch rods.
Cutting them is not an easy task. It required using super human strength to score the rods at the half way mark and then I had to bend them back and forth to fatigue the metal into breaking off.
Once you have them cut, you really need to use two sets of pliers to finish tweaking the rods to straighten them out fully.
I then used at 1/16th" drill bit to drill a hole into the base.
Add a dab of super glue to the hole and then using a pair of pliers, twist the rod into the hole. within seconds, you have a sturdy rod for your stand.
It is also a good idea that before you drill the hole into yous ship that you try to find the center line for it. Then, using the same sized drill bit, install a hole to the bottom of the model. The width of the hole is just enough that you can slide the ship on the post with relatively little force. And you don't need to add glue to have it stay. This then allows you to remove the ship to handle it in the future.
And that is it for the stands portion of this mini-series.
I hope you found this article, as well as my entire mini-series of articles as useful and informative as I did while writing them. Please feel free to leave any comments, questions or suggestions below.
So for now, "Live Long And Prosper!"
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