I finally got T, and I’d been noticing when facing him on the other side, that his Feuerbach always looked slightly bent - from transport or something. Now, that I’ve got the bare metal, I notice, that the front ‘barrel’ is actually slightly curving downwards, so it looks droopy. So how have others, who didn’t like sagging gun barrels dealt with this?
The standard procedure to unbend parts of miniatures seems to be universal: heat them (carefully) so they get some flexibility, then apply pressure very carefully. I suggest boiling water until you feel heat in the metal (submerging only the part you want to straighten). Fortunately, I never had the problem with Teucer, but Atalanta's rifle suffered a... shrinkage.
never heard using boiling water for that, it is usually used in plastics, will be interesting to try it next time I need it.
The idea is the same: leave the piece so it heats (carefully) so it becomes flexible. This is usually not needed in Infinity, since most of the pieces that bend are either swords (bending near the guard, which means after a few accidents you surrender, cut and use glue), or guns' muzzles, which suffer the same fate (my Atalanta's rifle goes straight from body to the suppressor, since the small cylinder was bending all the time, it broke, and I was unable to glue it...); something like Teucer's Feuerbach, however, is in that space (between too wide and too narrow, with a diamond-like shape) where you can't really unbend without messing everything... or breaking some detail on the model :S
Just seach a flat surface, put the blister spponge, the weapon, and use a flat surface like a sandwich, (better if made of wood or not very hard material), and slowly press ultil the piece get the correct form. The esponge or the wood is just to avoid damage or mark the piece of metal. You can boil your miniature to stripp your bad painted models... but not help at all to put them in place. Good luck with surgery! ^_^
Incredible!! You must win the next chemical nobel award for that, hot water only works with plastic and resins, never with metals...
So many blacksmiths cry in disbelief along the ages... XD Seriously, the part about heating the metal? To increase flexibility of what you want to straighten. Unless you want to risk snapping in a weak point, that is.
Boiling water isn't going to be hot enough to have a noticeable effect on white metal. It works on plastics and resins because their melting range (not a single temperature due to their structure) is lower than the 300-350°C of white metal. You also heat plastics and resins because they're typically thermoplastics and doing this will make them 'set' in the new position, which isn't needed with white metal because it's malleable anyway.
I won't say about the white metal specifically since i never had to try it, but on a general note you don't need to heat metal close to it's melting point to weaken it. For example iron melts over 1500°C, but you can work on it at 600-800°C
Trust me xagroth , view forged on fire on history channel , dont turn you in an expert blacksmith As all times you are wrong ,you try to get the right at all cost, im a modeller almost since 40 years ago, and nobody except you use hot water to repair metallic parts on miniatures
Ok so full disclosure, im working on my PHD in mechanical engineering at the university of Minnesota where I develop spatial actuated SMA actuators (no the double actuator is not redundant) so I really understand stressess. Heating the metal to a low temp like boiling water and then stressing is really bad. I could go into the math, but its messy and not overly intuitive but needless to say that you are adding a thermal stress on top of a mechanical one, then letting it cool. The residual stresses are going to MUCH greater than if you just bent the thing. So my advice, just carefully bend it.
Bah! U science guys and your humbug! Next thing, you’ll be saying, that the Earth is round and global warming is a thing ;)
Not a week ago I used my lighter again to try and bend the hand of my newly assembled ragik. Because I was in a hurry I left the lighter on for too long and the hand melted, fell on the carpet and merged into one body. I never felt so stupid in my life before...
That's an extra problem with white metal alloys - the forging temperature where it gets soft is very close to the actual melting point! If you've ever done your own casting you can see it in action, even very narrow pieces will keep their structure right up to the point where they slump into liquid. Iron is a completely different beast.