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Hi there,
Today after a few good minutes of staring at my pile of uncut Strelets cavalry sprues (thinking in horror at the massive amount of cutting and trimming waiting for me in order to make every horse standing in a stable way) I finally decided to beg for help...
Does any of you know of a fairly quick way to modify the horses bases so that the blessed animals could stand by themselves?
I tried to trim them with a cutter and even to melt them (lots of casualties ). It does work, but it's just so time consuming...
Any suggestion will be received with the utmost gratitude
Buy an old iron from a car-boot/jumble sale or thrift/charity shop, plug it in, go outside (plug nearest the door, you really need to be outside, unless you have respirators for the whole family) and wait for it to get hot, then using a damp cloth to protect your fingers, draw the horse base down (and quickly) across the flat of the iron until you get a solid band of 'snail slime' coming out behind the moving horse.
Practice on some you don't want (say a bag of Eagle Games horses), until you have got a temperature you are happy with and a technique that works.
Clean the iron after it has cooled with a paste-scraper and then polish with wire-wool
I glue a strip of matchbook cover (thin, sturdy cardboard) to the base, more to the side that the horse is leaning to. That usually stops him from toppling over when the rider is applied, as well as causes him to lean back towards a straight position.
Not pretty alone, but when charging en masse you can't tell.
I use a variety of small tools from Sprue Cutters to Diagonal Nippers. For me, the Strelets Horses are simple as I use an ordinary Hand Snipper to remove them from the sprue then remove the stump with a Flush End Cutter. I then use a wide bladed Exacto to even out any bumps.
Finally to smoothe out the base, I simply rub the figure along the bottom of my large wooden desk, it actually works great.