Tuesday 10 November 2009

Conversions


Now I remember why I never do them!

It all starts well enough. I find the 1mm drill and dremmel, mark where the holes are to go in the head and the shoulders of the mounted officer. Then the hands of the two foot officers who require new swords. Slowly does it, fine that's the hands drilled and quite neat too. The hole in the torso next; skidding around a bit still not too bad. Finally the head - good, good , almost there.

Of course I have not bothered to wrap the head in anything or put it in clamp. OW! suddenly hot! I let go of the red hot head which swings madly round on the drill before snapping the tiny drill bit in half. OK I have more drills carry on. That is a nice fit now. A bright idea why bother to go to the garage to get some soft metal wire the broken drill bit will make a perfect fitting peg for head and torso.Perfect in it goes, press hard. Oh, wait it has slipped entirely into the torso and is sitting there just below the level of the body. Now the swearing starts. Too flush to get out with pliers; it is a perfect fit and cannot be levered out or hammered further in.

Ten minutes of fumbling then OK if it won't come out then I will have to drill holes on each side of it into the soft metal then force a needle pliers in and pull it out. It will ruin the neckline of the figure and need rebuilding with green stuff but that's the best option.I start drilling and drilling and drilling. The wife arrives: "are you using power tools in the bedroom? I thought we agreed you wouldn't do that anymore?"
Finally out comes the rod. Still the up side is that I now have plenty of room to move the head around. In fact I could put a couple more heads in if I wanted to. Glue it up scoop in the araldite and stand back.

Actually that doesn't look too bad at all. Time for a coffee. I don't know why I don't convert more of my figures.

13 comments:

abdul666 said...

Looking forward to see the heroes of this surgical adventure in their painted 'flesh'!

Der Alte Fritz said...

John, after filling up a box with bits and pieces of torsos, arms, legs and muskets from conversion projects gone bad, I've decided to leave conversions to the Professionals. I no longer do them for the reasons that you cite in today's blog.

Xaltotun of Python said...

Personally love converting figures. I don't pretend that they are any good, but they're mine and that's (almost) all that matters.

Rob

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Sigh. That sounds so very much like my own attempts at converting plastic figures in recent years.

Best Regards,

Stokes

Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com said...

Without blood, without tears, (or at least a few curses) there is no glory.

-Ross

Fitz-Badger said...

Laughing in sympathy. At least you didn't drill through your fingers, eh?

Gallia said...

Once upon a time, my X-Acto #11 blade slipped so badly it almost carved off the edge of a fingertip. This chunk kind of went back and forth like a door. It was bad and bloody enough for me to go next door to inquire of the neighbor lady who happened to be a nurse. She calmly said something to the effect of no big deal. She was correct though I was convinced the chunk of fingertip would eventually and ghoulishly fall off. Nope. Just a raised bump is all there is30+ years later and there is still feeling in the nerves!
---
These days the blade seems to go more or less straight in like a rapier thrust. One must carry on with these bloody messes. Why? "Because we're here lad."
---
Bill

Anonymous said...

Using power tools in the bedroom? Hmmmmmm ....

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

I don't know, John. Your converted officer on horseback looks pretty good!

Best Regards,

Stokes

old-tidders said...

Good looking officer.

I only engage in conversions on smaller figures when absolutely necessary, usually just a head swap and use green stuff to hold the head in place (with a bit of superglue if needed).

-- Allan

Mosstrooper said...

What a distinguished looking officer ! , nice conversion

Anonymous said...

"I thought we agreed you wouldn;t do that anymore", when put through my Babel Fish on-line Translator, comes out as "I thought I told you not to do that anymore".

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Hello John,

Thank you for your kind words abut enjoying my blog in the morning with your coffee. I too have a similar routine here, and two of the first things I check at 6am, five mornings a week, are your Flanderkin Serjeant blog and the Blasthof blog. Both are right up my alley with regards to intent, figures, painting style, and battles.

One thing where the Blasthof Blog is concerned, and I don't know whether others have run into this difficulty too, but it is impossible to post comments. Every time I have tried in the last two weeks, my comment disappears when I click on "post". I notice that there are comments from other readers there, so perhaps it's just me. But I thought I'd mention it to you.

Keep up the inspiring posts for each! I'm especially interested to see how your Garde Jaegers turn out. I've toyed with the idea for a long time of departing a bit from 18th century uniforms and drafting a few select Napoleonic figures into my own forces, in much the same way as you and Phil are doing currently.

Best Regards,

Stokes