Cut the minis off the sprues and glue them together. Seems very easy, doesn’t it? And that’s pretty much the extent of the guidance you often get when you start collecting models. There are a whole slew of little tips and tricks that can either make assembly easier, make the finished model better, or help with other stages in the hobby process, and these are often only picked up piecemeal by experience or from seeing the odd tip or trick shared on social media in isolation. There aren’t many written guides out there around general assembly – there are videos, and lots of individual model specific guides, but I haven’t found many around the general process of putting a model together. Given my own youngest is now ferociously assembling Sisters of Battle, it seemed like a good time to put together some of the tricks I’ve learnt over the years for assembling models effectively.
Tools
Basic Tools
It sounds obvious, but you really need the right tools to do the best job. They certainly don’t have to be the most expensive tools – but ideally they should be good quality and appropriate for the model you want to build. At the most basic, you want a good pair of flushcut snippers to cut pieces from sprues cleanly, and an appropriate glue – some sort of plastic glue for plastic models, and superglue for resin models. (You’d usually use superglue for metal models too, but they are increasingly uncommon).
Snippers are a very personal choice, and there isn’t really a right answer for the best choice for you. I personally find flushcut snippers for wirecutting or electronics both better quality and cheaper than hobby equivalents – you can get a pack of 10 good quality sharp snippers for the same price as a set from Warhammer, and then you have spares and fresh blades at hand too. As long as the blades are sharp and the grips work accurately in your hands, then you’ve got good snippers for you. If you are doing kits with very small pieces or very large pieces, it can be worth having a couple of different sizes if you start building Gundams or want to really lean into display quality competition entries.
Plastic glue from all brands will generally work quite well. Plastic glue works by effectively melting the plastic on both sides of the join and they then set to become one solid piece. That means you rally want to control the flow of the glue as much as possible. There are two general types of plastic glue applicators – brush applicators (like Tamiya Extra Thin Cement – my personal preference) or through a thin metal tube like Revell model kit glue. To be honest here, I like the metal tube applicators a lot for easy good application, but they tend to block as the glue dries, and you rarely get effective use through a whole bottle. Its possible to clear it by heating the tube over a flame, but its a lot of messing around. The fine Tamiya brushes work really well for me.
Superglue is widely available, but needs to be purchased by an adult, of course. I favour small tubes of gel based superglue for precise application – I find larger bottle hard to apply and also tend to dry up too quickly. Having some tiny 3ml tubes stashed in cases i really useful for quick fixes, particularly if you do have metal models likely to need a patch after transport.
Advanced Tools
Lets be clear – for a general level of hobby, you probably don’t need any of these at all. These are only needed for the very top end of assembly and you don’t really need them for most wargaming fun. To do the very best build you can, though, having some additional options can really help.
To take your build to the next level, its useful to have a set of small files, a small drill (with some wire or paperclips), some 2 part epoxy resin, some vallejo plastic putty, and some matt varnish.
Files are used to smooth off any irregularities where pieces of the model were cut off the sprue, and also to smooth off any mold lines on the model. It can help improve the final finish significantly – anything not supposed to be part of the model detracts from the final build.
A small drill is useful for 2 main things – drilling out plastic or resin gunbarrels on the model, which can look flat, even with a dab of black for the illusion of a hole. Its a necessity for big metal or resin minis, where you need to drill a support hole in both sides of a join, and connect the pieces with wire or metal rod, in order to support the join for the heavy materials.
When you assemble larger models, particularly in metal or hand cast resin, you can end up with very big cracks or gaps, particularly with handcast metal or resin models. Big gaps can take quite a lot of material to fill, and it needs to be fairly strong. Two part epoxy resins like Milliput or Greenstuff are a great option here, allowing big gaps to be filled and smoothed out – and if necessary, the surface sculpted to replace damage. Its a very powerful tool. Its often useful to have some vaseline or similar to use on your fingers to stop the sticky material adhering to hands too.
Smaller gaps need a more gentle approach, and Vallejo Plastic Putty is absolutely amazing for filling small cracks. It can shrink a fair bit as it dries, so you may need to refill a crack for depth after the first pass. One special trick with Vallejo Plastic Putty – if you put a dab on one side of a join when useing superglue on the other side, you get an amazing, perfect fit join that sets almost instantly rather than waiting 10-20 seconds for superglue to set hard. It is like assembling on cheat mode!
If you don’t want to use more Vallejo Plastic Putty after an initial fill, or to fill a very slight gap between parts on a plastic model, a slight wash of matt varnish can actualy fill the hole and set solid very effectively.
Next Level Tools
What goes beyond advanced assembly? Well, you can go beyond perfecting a simple build by the numbers into customising your model. Here, we go another step up, and look at Dremmel rotary tools, sculpting tools to go beyond filling gaps to replacing or altering parts, and as a more extreme option, 3d printers, allowing you to print replacement parts for the stock models.
Rotary tools like Dremmels are phenomenally useful for more radical customizations of kits. They can be used as grinders, which are brilliant to remove icons and decorations – taking off Dark Angel heraldry to paint a mini as an Ultramarine, for example. They also work as automatic hobby drills, and can be brilliant for work like fitting LEDS in big kits, or reposing legs on big walkers. Its very easy to destroy large expensive models with these tools, so you need to make sure you practice control thoroughly before going near live plastic, and its why its a next level tool, not just advanced.
We’ve already mentioned 2 part putties, where you mix up milliput or greenstuff to fill gaps. A skilled hand can actually sculpt part or even all of a mini with these materials, but you obviously need a set of sculpting tools to do so. This takes talent, fine precision work with hands, and a lot of practice, but you can literally replace broken parts or alter models from one line to match another.
If physical sculpting isn’t an option, owning a 3d printer and simply printing replacement parts for models allows you to go to that next level in appearance. Maybe some chapter specific shoulder pads instead of plain pads with transfers. Maybe heads you feel match your army beter. There’s infinite possiblities just from the models professionals have made available, but you can also use tools like the software Blender to actually virtually sculpt parts before printing them into reality.
Of course, its perfectly valid to just maintain a big stash of spare parts and simply use those instead of making your own – but you will need to use lots more filler to get parts that were’t designed to fit looking seamless!