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also... when you put the plastic in the oven it warps and does funky stuff like shrinks slightly. This leads to unpredictable results.

Really interessing! I'll gonna try it!

Just a point of interest for those of you who think that you can use water to do this.
Water is less efficient because of its low boiling point. Water boils at 100C. The temp. of the water is the average kinetic energy of the molecules in the solution. Once on of the molecules reaches 100C and it's near the surface of the solution it flies off as a gas. Therefore the temperature of boiling water cannot be more than 100C. Salt is an ionic solid. The lattice energy that holds the salt crystal together requires a lot of energy to overcome. For salt to go through a phase change to a liquid requires far more energy than what water can absorb before going through a phase change and becoming a gas. To bend anything thicker than paper thin plasticard or plastic you have to leave the figure in boiling water for a really long time and even then it barely softens the plastic. Salt holds a much higher temperature and allows the bending of larger thicker plastic peices. I honestly dont know if you could use water to bend a carnifex tail but i just used this same technique to bend two balrog wings into a completely different pose. NO way you could do this with water.

This is why I didnt do physics.

Without understanding any of that, except water boils, I can safely say that with a little patience and a bit of skill, water is the lesser risk option.

Alternatively, if you are gonna do something outlandish, why not just use GS and re-sculpt the part? Its easier than messing around with heat and potentially screwing your detail or the entire piece/mini...

i think sennacherib´s comment is very useful. it gave insight to this discussion wether to use water or salt. it breaks down to this: water won´t get hot enough...use salt instead, nuff said!

I meant that you can put the salt in the oven, warm it up, then put the model in the salt... Not stick you model in the oven....

Great idea, thanks!

Thats fantastic... cheers!

deffo gonna try this 2morrow for bending my trygon conversions tail into the right pose... cheers!!

I would think to use sand. Its a lot cheaper than salt, and I would think would be much more stable at high temperatures.

Huh, cool. Gotta find a reason to try this now. Thanks!

This will help alot as i warped one of my basilisks in boiling water, it was an older version, made in the 1990's and the new model survived untouched

I would think twice about sand. It does not dissolve in water. Salt, which can get stuck to your model if its too hot will dissolve. also... salt can take temps over 500 degrees, so in that repect it is just as good as water as a medium to transfer heat to your model.

To all who wish to try this. It works great but be sure you play around as i advised with sprue to make sure you have a sence of how hot the salt should be etc.

sennacherib wrote: Not all nids have strait tails and not all gaurdsman have uniformly positioned legs. In order to remedy this, all you need are a low rimmed metal pan, preferably without any Teflon lining and a bunch of salt, and some extra sprue to use to test the heat of your salt. I use iodized salt because it has smaller grains than that of kosher salt and smaller grains will envelope your model more evenly.
...

A very interesting idea! Some comments that occurred to me:
-If the texture or the salt will end up imprinting on the model pieces you might want to try using pickling salt rather then table salt; the very fine grains should avoid any distinct impressions,
-I'm not sure if this is the exact explanation, but a poster earlier mentioned hot salt having a funny smell: that may very well be the chemicles that iodized salt is adulterated with (in addition to the iodine, obviously, there are non-obvious compounds such as anti-caking agents),
-While boiling water may seem simpler, I would point out that it's actually rather dangerous; consider that if you're only heating a small part of the model, you are necessarily holding the rest of the model immediately above a vessel of boiling water.
-Salt is cheap and you know what you're getting; salt sold for food consumption is about as safe as anything can get.

The image of what happens when it gets too hot is interesting. That effect could be used for aging / rust and pitting effects!

Its funny that you say that. i have wondered at using the TOO hot salt technique to work on my nurlge minis. it seems an easy way to texture large areas.

Has anyone tried this technique with finecast yet? does it work ok?

Also anyone tried it on painted models? what is the result? I would naturally expect to have to repaint but are there any other negative effects?

Bendertron wrote:Has anyone tried this technique with finecast yet? does it work ok?

Also anyone tried it on painted models? what is the result? I would naturally expect to have to repaint but are there any other negative effects?

Resin and plastic are very different. Resin can't be softened and recured like that.

I have never tried to hot salt a painted plastic model and i am not sure that i would recommend it. If you give it a shot, post your results here please. i am sure that others would really love the insight. I have never tried it on resins either. seems like it might work but you would really want to use a much lower heat since the plastics dont soften in the trunk of your car as much as some resins will. also ... be really careful if you do try anything with resins. Toxic vapors etc. should be monitored.

Perfect for rusted corroded neglect that would be all over the Underhive or on an ancient 40K battlefield (not to mention any standard CSM vehicle).

Never thought about intentionally ruining a model to make it look better, but I may have to try this.

I know it's not the intent of the tut, but it's still what people take away from it that is most important.

all these years i have been trying to bend models with heat.. all those models.. wasted above a candle or in a au bain marie.. why do i see this only now?? someone hit me in the face please..

Look on the bright side. You wont be melting any more models with candles. I helped a friend out with this a while back. He and i made wings for his greater demon. They worked out great. If any of you all try this ... i would appreciate photos and feedback here so that other people will be able to benefit from your experiences.

You can increase the boiling point of water by making a solution of salt, you can get the salty water to sit above 100°C easily.

You wouldn't risk that texture that way, there is that safety concern though.

GW manager explained this to some customers, only they said to use a microwave instead of a stove. The customers didn't understand the directions properly and one left the model in the salt when they microwaved it. You could see where the as in the resin thunderbolt exploded out.

The other understood the science behind microwaves but lacked experience, so they microwaved the salt in the wrong kind of bowl for 20 minutes. The bowl was glowing and melted bottom. The microwave was ruined but since they heated the salt up they thought they might as well use it. Ever see a drop of water fall in the Mojave desert? Was kind of like that.

In reference with using sand. Sand is usable for this application, opticians use it all the time to bend glasses to better fit around the ear usually. I have bent tons of spoons at my mother-in-law's optical to find that it works best and some old plastic frames.

So don't be afraid of using sand. There might be some impurities in it that could cause problems but get decent sand and you won't have problems. Plus it holds the heat better and has a much higher melting point than salt.

well that is a nice idea... sand...sounds very interresting...

Sat has the advantage of dissolving though, thus making clean up much easier .

sennacherib wrote:Sat has the advantage of dissolving though, thus making clean up much easier .

Well if you want to waste salt by washing it away... sand at least once cooled can be saved for later. Unless if you are referring to getting the little grains out of the plastic that you left in for too long, water works great for salt but a brush works for sand... both are plentiful in my house.

Just to be clear I am not saying that either way is better, they both have about equal advantages and show that plastic models can be bent in any direction... emperor, chaos gods, and such.

I would think that if you want to use sand you need to sift it first to gather only the small grains. That way you can make sure that you have a consistent "medium" similar to salt.

You could also use a hot melt glue pot to store and heat the sand in. Probably less power consumption than a stove, easier on the relationship with your significant other, easier to have in the work area but only practical for small pieces.

I'll definitely have to try the sand as I know that this is what my optometrist uses to shape the branches of my glasses. So I guess it's pretty safe. But I will definitely sift it to have a very fine texture.

As for as water soluble, I don't think it's a problem because if I can't brush it off, it's embedded in the plastic which means it was too hot.

To create the pitted and rusted effect, salt is definitely the way to go though as there you want it real hot so there is a chance that salt will be embedded in the plastic. Easier to dissolve it in water than to pick out grains of salt off the model.

As much as I hate posting in necro'd threads, I used this method when it was first posted to reposition some Cold One Knight legs to fit on my High Elves dragon. Worked quite well, although always test a piece of plastic first to get the hang of it.

I'm gona to try this with my guard. Thanks for the idea.