How to glue and pin

I figured I'd publish this out of its context so that I could link back to it later. It seems like something that is likely to come up over and over.

There are numerous sources on the internet that will tell you how to glue and or pin a model, probably because there are numerous philosophies about pinning and or gluing. I like to think of mine as the "Lazy method."

I say this because, for the most part, I don't screw with two part epoxys. I want something glued in five minutes, not five hours. Occasionally I will use a glue gun to hold pieces in place until the other glue sets. But for the most part, my "glue" is super glue and nothing more fancy than that.

Be conservative with superglue. Too much and it will take too long to dry. Also, keep in mind that of the things that superglue will glue together, it is best at gluing together flesh. It takes absolutely no time for the glue to begin bonding your fingers together. Thus, if you're going to be pressing two pieces together to glue them, you might want to think about what you're pressing with. Fingers work in a pinch, but rubber bands are much better if you can use them. After the glue has dried, you need only cut the rubber bands away.

As for pinning. I keep seeing the words "jeweller's drill" whenever I read articles about pinning. I don't know what's wrong with these people, but I assume it's the same problem that causes them to use the words "jeweller's saw" in discussions of converting. You need neither of these pieces of equipment. I assume that the reason they are so ubiquitously mentioned is because GW makes Jeweller's saws and Jeweller's drills. However, I recommend a Dremel.

Dremel's have little drills (you can buy a 1/32nd or 3/54 drill bit for about $1.50, the dremmel itself will run you a weighty initial investment, but will still cost less than a single piece of equipment from GW and it can then be used to pin, convert miniatures, make scenery and every other frickin' thing on the planet). I cannot stress this enough, if you play 40k, you must have a Dremel. By the way, Dremel also makes a pretty nice hot knife and spot welder. Weehaw!

The goal in pinning is to put a tine hole in both sides of the thing to be glued. Depending on your pin size, you're going to need to be fairly accurate about how the two "faces" come together. For low gauge wire, the stuff will bend and so it's not so important. For high gauge wire, or actual pins, where the holes line up is where the holes line up and there's no two ways about it.

What sort of gauge wire do you need? Not very thick actually. Paper clips are a little too thick except for the more heavy duty miniatures. I'd say for 40k stuff, you really want about half the thickness of a paper clip. This, as I've mentioned, gives you the add flexibility when you're gluing the stuff into position.

As for the actual drilling, keep in mind that the size of a pin is normally only about an 1/8". I've used longer pins for different purposes--the one I used for the leg joint of the Eldar Wraithlord went all the way through the groin and connected to both legs, 1/2". You don't need to drill deep. Also, the miniature is going to get hotter the longer you drill, and there's a greater chance that the drill will get stuck (sometimes forever) the deeper you try to go. Little shallow holes. Remember, you're just trying to give the thing extra support, not retroactively creating a skeleton for the model. A short pin and some crazy glue will hold most models together.

For larger models (and for scenery) it is sometimes necessary to give the glue some help. In these cases I recommend using a glue gun to glue the center of a piece that's got super glue at the edges. Also, if you put hot glue at the edge of a joint, it will overflow covering up seem lines. Note, this really only works on organic looking joints. Vehicles will look weird with hot glue portruding from glued on features.

Lastly, when you do the actual drilling, be careful. Fear and respect all power tools. I recommend holding things in a vice. Drilling while you're holding stuff in your fingers is a good way to get a drill in your finger. Also, though there's not much kick up from drilling lead, better safe than blind. Wear goggles.