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Hello everyone, after building three 40k armies I am now left with a couple pounds worth of sprues that I have no clue what to do with. What do you guys suggest I do with them? P.s. I dont want to recycle them. Thanks

Well you can cut em up and use them as debris when making terrain. You can thow them in the bin and not recycle them. You could make an army of Spruecrons. If you cut them into roughly the same size segments you can turn them into brick walls.

There really isn't much you can do with sprue.

Those are all great ideas, and I really like the brick idea so I might try that. Thanks

Long sections when cut nicely, can be used as "logs" take your hobby or fine-toothed saw, and scrape it down the length of the rods, and you have reasnoably convincing rough logs of wood to use for terrain (bridges, buildings, etc.) and because of the two slanted edges, you can glue edge to edge and get a nifty curvature to it too. You can even roughen up the spars before "loggifying" by taking a knife to the rims/edges to give it a rough-cut look, then put one end into a pencil sharpener, and voila, you have logs roughly cut to make a palisade.

I did this.

They make nice Chaosy scenery and objective markers if you've got some spare spikey bits.

I made a fence out of some sprue once as my first terrain project. Came out looking really nice.

If you want something easy/quick then walls or barricades as has been suggested. If you want a challenge, build something proper.

I started on a ork tracked bike thing made entirely from sprue;

You could also use some of them to mount your minis on while you paint them.
I've tried it myself and am very happy with the result.

Meat grinder from Amazon. I make a lot of rubble.

LOL...."I make a lot of rubble". I love it.

oftenwrong wrote:
Meat grinder from Amazon. I make a lot of rubble.

Spruecrons?

Lucarikx

Small pieces of sprue can be made into fern-like plants by slicing partially downward to create leaf layers with a hobby knife.

 Lucarikx wrote:
Spruecrons?

Lucarikx

Yeah I'd like to see some spruecrons

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/438545.page

 Fifty wrote:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/438545.page

i wish i knew why that thread keeps getting referenced given that it's one of the worse executions of spruecrons that have been posted.

Cut some of them up into equally sized bricks and paint them gold. Turn said pile of ingots into a shiny objective marker.

Cut off the outside bits and throw the spikey inner bits at enemies, all those sharp plastic edges will really annoy them.


On a more serious note, I made some ladders and railings with them.

I make spikes and brick wall out of them. Brick walls are pretty easy. Cut them into bricks... glue them like a wall. Cover in sand to make them look like a wall and then leave a bunch around like the wall collapsed.

Johnno wrote:If you want something easy/quick then walls or barricades as has been suggested. If you want a challenge, build something proper.

I started on a ork tracked bike thing made entirely from sprue;

Johnno that is amazing looking. Did you sand down the barrel so it was perfectly round or did you chance upon a round bit of sprue?

oftenwrong wrote:Meat grinder from Amazon. I make a lot of rubble.

You clever bugger. I spent HOURS cutting up all mine into little itty bitty bits. I should have done what you did.

Zuul wrote:Cut some of them up into equally sized bricks and paint them gold. Turn said pile of ingots into a shiny objective marker.

This is a great idea. I'm gonna go do this now.

Thanks for all the great ideas everyone, ive decided to make them into spiky logs because im getting into hail Caesar from warlord games and I could use the logs to make wooden palisades or wooden stakes to put on the base of archers or artillery.

 Rahz wrote:
You could also use some of them to mount your minis on while you paint them.
I've tried it myself and am very happy with the result.

I like this idea...

I have used them as terrain (fences, ect) and also as a framework for houses and such.... also good for basing material (in certain instances anyway)

Take aluminum foil or other nonstick paper, and a lighter, heat up the sprue and gently pull it apart until it's a thin wire, let it cool, cut to shape, and bamo communication antennas.

You can also use them as supports for cardboard buildings.

You can also chew on them and use your teeth indents to make 'damage' from all sorts of sources such as Nid acid, to bullets.

They also make good 'extra armor' pieces for guard vechiles.

Sprues are actually one of the most useful materials you can possibly use. I haven't thrown away much since I stated back in 2nd edition (40K). I'm currently making a Bretonnian Trebuchet and a large crane out of some. It isn't any different (Except for shape and that can be remedied with a sharp knife) from Strip Styrene that people pay a lot for. And best of all, it's free....minus the payment for the models you got it off of at least

The meat grinders are exceedingly hard to find where I am. One thing I did see is a guy make entire buildings by using his sprue cutters and making "bricks" out of them. Looked great and the extra bricks were perfect rubble.

I do love the idea of using them as figure holders for painting. I usually use an old wine cork, but this would work for a lot of stuff that corks don't quite cut it for. Great idea. I exalt you sir.