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So, I have been painting a lot lately, and it gets me annoyed sometimes to have to figure out a decent way to hold the mini. I know almost everyone uses some of the tacky stuff for posters and what-have-you, but I cannot seem to get that stuff to hold the mini well enough. Then I recalled a holder I had seen years ago and figured I would try my hand at it. What resulted was a quick afternoon project that didn't cost much and is working really well. The beauty of these is that they are totally adjustable, hold the fig like an iron vice and then pop the fig off with no hassle at all, and no cleaning up tacky residue or anything like that.

The fig holders are adjustable to hold any mini from 25mm base to 70mm base, square, oval or round. Very handy. Here is what you need to make a set of 10. The total cost for me was about $25.

- 40" long 3/4" dowel rod, cut into 4" lengths - I find the 4" gives a good handle on the fig without being too big.
- Some Matte paper, heavy card-stock or even sheet styrene, cut into 2.5" squares. Need a total of 11 of these, 1 template and the rest for the mini holders
- 40 #8 Machine screws - 3/4 Long
- 80 #8 Washers
- 40 #8 Nuts
- 40 Rubber faucet washers (My ACE hardware had these for $0.20 each, most expensive part)
- 10 Flush head nails (Make sure these have a very low profile but wide head (keep the jokes to yourself)).
- Wood glue - use your fave, I used Elmer's carpenter glue
- Compass to draw lines on the template

Step 1

Take 1 of your squares and mark the center and make a small hole. This is your template piece and will guarantee all the squares are the same. Use the compass to measure out a 25mm and a 70mm circle. Now draw a line across the center from corner to corner. This gives you the center line for the next 2 holes. These you have to eyeball yourself. You will use these holes to make the oval that the fig holding hardware will 'ride' in. Using thick Matte board was a godsend here, I could use a hobby knife to make the hole just right. You only need to get it right once, the template will make all the others work.

You can see in the picture 1 how I eyeballed mine.

Once the template is done, use it to mark the oval locations on all the other templates. Just stack it on top of the fig holder, make sure it's even on all sides and trace the oval. Rotate it 3 more times until you have an oval on each side. Know there is knife work to be done. CAREFULLY, cut out each oval and the center hole. I used a Dremel workbench press for this but you can easily do it by hand or on virtually any drill press, depending on the material you choose for the holder stock.

Step 2

All the hard work is over, trust me. Now you just need to get the hardware together and make the fig holders. Put a rubber washer on the machine screw and then push that through the oval hole. On the back side put a washer then a nut. Spin the nut up to Goodentight. Do that for each hole on the holder stock. (Picture 2 shows the hardware, picture 4 shows the assembly without the nut)

Step 3

Drill a small hole in the dowel rods. I mean a small hole, it's just a starter hole to keep it from cracking when you drive the nail in. (Picture 3). Now just add a little wood glue to the top of the dowel. (Picture 6) Hammer the nail home. Leave it to FULLY dry (At least an hour, I'm impatient as all hell) (Picture 7)

Step 4

Now use it to paint your minis. Very handy, if I do say so myself. (Pics 8 & 9). All you do is center the mini on the holder, slide the rubber washers (and nuts/bolts) to firmly grasp the base and gently tighten the Philips head screw while holding the nut on the back with your other finger. You're NOT wrenching these down so you don't need massive torque - NO POWER TOOLS. lol


Step 5

You can make a base by getting a hunk of wood (I used 2 hunks of wood) and using a drill press to drill 3/4" holes in the wood to take the dowel and hold it.

(I cannot seem to get the images to work for crap on the board, the exact same post is on my blog at http://billsravingrant.blogspot.com/2012/06/mini-holder-for-painting.html) and all the pictures are there.

I have a easer way (no offence) http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/tools/a4bb/

I do something similar, only I use two fixed pins and one sliding pin.

i bought that third hand
(or helping hand) for half that price!

its a good tut, and for some people it will really work, but a whine cork with blue tack does the same

I have never been able to make the wine cork and tacky stuff work. Maybe I'm just challenged Figs just seem to move around and finally fall off. I don't know if it's because I live in a desert (Albuquerque, New Mexico) or what, but the dry air and hot conditions seem to mess with everything from paint mixing to molding parts.

There is another product also, from Micro-Mark that has 4 of the alligator clips;

http://www.micromark.com/4-arm-holding-jig,7173.html

I used that for a while, but didn't like the marks the clips left on the figs. It is also too light in the base to stand up as delivered. I had to put gobs of mold-able lead in the base to get it to hold figs properly. I got some small tubing from the hardware store to cover the jaws, but then had the problem of the model moving slightly in the jaws. All-in-all, these holding jigs work great so far, for me, at least.

v/r
Bill
aka PhantomPhixer

i usually have a pin or a metal or plastic "fin" sticking out under the model where i put the alligator clip so it wont leave teethmarks on my model

I use the bottom of a Muller rice pot and Blu-tac, seems to work just fine as long as you use enough Blu-tac. Sticks a lot better to that than to a cork, I find.