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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. The low lip on the pan is preferable to something else because the lip may burn you when your reaching in and out to maneuver your model. I use a pan that I won’t be using for cooking because when you heat plastic all kinds of nasty chemicals leach out and it’s better to be safe than sorry. You never know what you might be ingesting otherwise.
1. Put salt in pan and heat on high for 2-3 minutes.
2. Reduce heat to very low, and stir the salt to spread the heated salt from the bottom of the pan thoroughly so you have no hot spots.
3. Give the salt a few minutes to both cool off slightly and to allow the aforementioned uniform spreading of heat to occur.
4. Test sprue. Stir the salt thoroughly again and then immerse the sprue in the salt. If the salt is too hot it will create dents in the surface of your plastic and ruin your model. If it dents the surface then allow the salt to cool a little longer, stir and repeat. It should be hot enough to soften the plastic and allow you to bend the model in about 10 seconds. For larger models you need to use even lower temps and a longer immersion time.
5. Once you have pulled the model from the salt, you should be able to immediately bend the model with gentle pressure.
This technique has many applications. I have used it successfully on Nids, and on some figures that had cloth pant legs. It is not appropriate for marines or any other figure with hard armor. I have also used it successfully to allow me to shape solid cut out plasticard wings for greater demon and hive tyrant models. Enjoy.

Looks great and could be somewhat easy once you get the hang of it.
Great job on those wings!

For larger bending project I would say this might be the best way to go.





( I am still going to keep my lighter though )

Thanks for the thumbs up.
this really is a pretty easy safe way to manipulate plastics. I have found that an open flame overheats the exterior to fast and that when you bend the model sometimes you end up with fingerprints and the like in the plastic.

Awesome tutorial man, thanks!

Cool
I mean Hot!
I mean... oh you get the idea

nice tutorial
Even the too hot bit looks like it has some texturing possibilities eg Rust that has deep pitting, or acid pitting perhaps?

wow! this is really great, i never would have guessed or thought about this ever. The tails do look much better with a little "movement" added to them.

sennacherib wrote:I have found that an open flame overheats the exterior to fast and that when you bend the model sometimes you end up with fingerprints and the like in the plastic.

It is true that, when I started out with an open flame, I did leave a few thumbprint or two...

Every method has it's own set of risks though. Even to those who are skilled experts. Heck, we take risks driving to work or school every day, so what if a few of our plastic minis get some fingerprints or salt pits burnt on to them, things could always be worse.

Hmmm, I wonder how sand would work as an alternative to salt?

Nice thing about salt is that its water soluable. also... it has a very high melting point (1400 C ) where as sand may have impurities that can get released with heat and then biind to your model.
@Chibi Bodge Battle_ never though of using it to texture a model so that it looked a little rusted etc. may have to try that for my deathgaurd.

If you do use this meathod to bend a hormis tail, i have found that bending them upwards makes them look like a happy dog. THey are supposed to be closer to lizards than anything and lizards tend to wriggle their tails side to side so i have bent mine in a similar fashion.

Never though of doing it that way guess it would work better then using an open flame especially for the big nids.

Great tutorial, I have a few tank bits I can try this out on.

Good luck and let me know how it works out. I have tired to use this same techniqe to shape armor plates and its a bit rough unless you have some sort of har mold that you can use to press the plates against to get them to form right. I tried this for some armor on the legs of one of the demon prince that i am sculpting and it worked out ...ok. Not great. Im still working on tyring to get it right for some of the really big conversion works that i am set to engage in.

hooray for my Dark Elves cold one legs now sitting nicely atop my High Elves dragon. Thank you so much for this idea!

side note: hot salt smells weird.

This seems like a great idea, especially if the stock positions are silly.

darktau wrote:This seems like a great idea, especially if the stock positions are silly.

or just plain repetitive and boring......

Yep, more uniqueness, I hope some chaos players have seen this one, it could add lots of detail to things like plague marines or thousand sons.

darktau wrote:Yep, more uniqueness, I hope some chaos players have seen this one, it could add lots of detail to things like plague marines or thousand sons.

i would think Emperors Children...... tentacles and such.

Totally unnecessary, hot water is just as good (I tried it all) and much less complex. Just heat up water in a pan, dip mini, bend, done!

In any case, be careful not to get a metal piece heated up, as that will burn you if you end up touching it.

Cool. I don't think i've ever of heard a method like this.

I used the wife's blowdryer to straighten out a bent monolith panel, although I was recommended to use this method. Hot water didn't seem to work that great, though - could have been difficult getting to a high enough temp to make the plastic malleable.

Is this effective enough to repose something as thick as a Space Marine leg?

Commander Endova wrote:Is this effective enough to repose something as thick as a Space Marine leg?

Stick to pinning and green stuff, bending an armored leg aint right.

Dont try it on an armored limb. it will look funky. Best way to do that is to cut out the accordian shaped thing at the back of the knee, and then cut behind the knee cap plate. Its not easy. THen green stuff any gaps

Oh. Alright. Thanks guys.

My aunt used to use this method for reshaping the frame of glasses (eye wear). I was wondering how it would work out on models but never tried. Great write up and pictures. If someone trys this on a tank post some pictures. It would be interesting to see how it comes out.

Yea... pleast post them here. i am interested in how the end result looks on a tank.

Interesting. However, what are you to do with non-organic parts?

Also, if you use water (without boiling it) you can also achieve this, without the risk of the granules impressing their shape into your precious surface.

Woulnt it be easier and safer for your models to find out the temp at which it needs to be and put in into the oven at the right temp till it gets hot...

...then you wouldnt have "hot spots" and would over heat it. Might take some playing with to find the right temp, but over all might be safer.

DISCIPLE_SoC wrote:Woulnt it be easier and safer for your models to find out the temp at which it needs to be and put in into the oven at the right temp till it gets hot...

...then you wouldnt have "hot spots" and would over heat it. Might take some playing with to find the right temp, but over all might be safer.

Then wouldn't you run the risk of bending something you DONT want bended... or worse yet... mashing all the detail outta a portion of the model when you pick it up to bend the part you want bent??