17 August 2012

Attending to the Attendant…

The Mechanical Attendant

In order to get my second miniature started this weekend for A Tale of 3 Painters I had to fix the broken arms of the Mechanical Attendant this week. True to form I didn't get much chance to look at it until last night (Thursday), giving me this evening to tidy and undercoat ready for weekend painting.

The damaged Mech Attendant

You may remember, when I opened the Attendant's clamshell his robotic arms were very twisted and whilst attempting to fix the problem they both snapped off (above). The real issue now was that the metal in these places was too thin for a pin. I had two options in mind – glue them back in place with support of some kind, or cut them off entirely. I went with the former.


Fortunately, I discovered that if I faced them inwards, rather than the original outwards direction, they could rest on the top of the Attendant's shoulders and were supported on two sides. This would mean that they were only weak at the original join on the arm. This worked like a dream for the right hand side. On the left, however, the arm was distorted.

I decided to support this side by adding a length on pinning rod. I then filled in the gap behind it with greenstuff. It's more of an aesthetic solution as it doesn't support the join much more, it just hides the distorted arm a little better.

Looking at it again in the cold light of morning I think this is the best achievable solution, without rebuilding the entire arms from plasticardand bitz. It does the job and I'm looking forward to getting some undercoat spray on him this evening.

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As much as we are enjoying this project, it is for charity. If you enjoy reading about our progress please donate towards our final total – even if it's only £1 – via the donate button at the top of the page or on the Cancer Research UK website directly.

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Thanks for your support!

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8 comments:

  1. That's a lot of good work for a design flaw in the figure?

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    1. I must admit the fixing took a lot less time than I thought it would.

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  2. That's going to be an interesting figure to see painted up. Have a good weekend.

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    1. Looking forward to it, although I have no idea what colour to paint him yet!

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  3. Nice repair job, it sucks when you get damage like this I broke the barrel tip off a Hasslefree Lady Soldier's G36 and could never get it to go back. It was my own fault I dropped it. from waist height on to a concrete tiled floor :(.

    Look forward to seeing your paintjob on the next part of the project

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    1. Some of these metal models are so fragile – fingers crossed the repairs will suffice.

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  4. Great job on the repair, but I'm so glad you got that one! It reminds me of an unholy cross between 'the Blake Hole' movie robots, Maximilian and Old Bob.

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    1. Lol – I was going to suggest he's Robbie the Robot's skinny younger brother!

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