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I have some primed and/or basecoated minis that I need to take the arms off and replace. What's the best way to do this? I did one of my SM scouts and just wiggling it took it off. I'm wondering if it's better to score it with a knife first or just do the wiggle technique.

Thanks in advance!
Oriphus

How are they attached? If it's superglue then just carefully pull them off. If it's plastic glue/cement then you'll need to saw/cut them off as it bonds plastic by melting the two halves together.

wiggle and twist seems to always work for me. I tend not to trust blades around my models so...

Depending on the pose you might have luck with a good quality modeling bone saw, which is a very fine sharp thin blade with a handle. Just slowly work it back and forth. Results usually in a cleaner flatter cut rather than uneven cut with a hobby knife.

Yeah, but I would definately not use scissors or a hobby knife.

Bullfrog wrote:How are they attached? If it's superglue then just carefully pull them off. If it's plastic glue/cement then you'll need to saw/cut them off as it bonds plastic by melting the two halves together.

I believe it's Testors Plastic Model glue. It comes in a black triangular bottle with a long needle dispensor. It doesn't seem to work on anything but plastic, but I've never gotten a great hold as if it's melting the plastic. It seems more like super glue but only bonds well to plastic.

Thanks!
Oriphus

I just get clippers right into the join, and a quick sharp squeeze takes the arm clean off, hardly damaging it, and quick.

You could always use the point of a knife to try and pry them apart, or at least weaken the joint.

Can't stress enough how careful you should be if you try doing this though. Slipping with sharp implements is rarely fun (unless you define fun as bleeding and sticking yourself back together again).

Like I said, wiggling and prying worked on my scout, and I just scraped off the dried up white glue and it looks like new. I just didn't know if this was frowned upon or if I just got lucky one time. I'm going to remove some terminator arms and they're so thick I figure the glue is going to be the first and only thing to give.

Yeah, you should be fine, not sure what kind of glue it is but it seems to be acting much like super glue would. General rule of thumb when tearing stuff apart is just be careful not to snap anything, common sense really.

SOunds more like Poly cement than superglue, so it does actually melt the plastic together...But as for getting it apart: Wiggle and pull and if that doesn't work make a slight cut into the melted bit them pull...

The poly cement that GW sell is a low grade version which consists of solvent and a lot of dissolved polystyrene.

This type is less successful than proper liquid cement at bonding the surfaces and can often be snapped off with a bit of luck and technique.

Testors glue sucks IMHO, i use zap-a-gap and glue my models, and fingers, together, then when i change my mind about what weapon to give the guy, i take my hobby knife and use it as a pry-bardont even have to cut to break it off, then i sand down the glue left on the model and im done...

Testors doesn't seem to bond mt plastics too well, I mostly use superglue. Twist and pull but mostly twist, this way you have less change of snapping things.