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So my hobby this entire week has consisted of cleaning mold lines. Every night I come home from work eat, talk with my wife, surf the net, and log some hours with my hobby project. This week that means assembling 60 termagants. I've been doing this hobby for a long time but I think this is the first time I've really been frustrated by the sheer enormity of the time necessary for proper preparation of models. For those of you that have never prepared a termagant, they are assembled from several pieces: body, head, leg section, gun, arm. Each piece is ringed by a mold line. The line runs through and across highly detailed feature , so it isn't like scraping a marine's flat surfaces. I estimate that I'm around 90% finished, but have invested at least 20 hours.

Am I the only one out there who suffers from MLB?

Usually mine come around a bit after about 3 stages in painting, not including priming...

The ones I hate the most though are those that for some reason run right down the middle of the face.

You certainly aren't alone, mould lines are by far my most hated part of the hobby, quite possibly my only hated part of the hobby. They drive me insane because to clean them properly takes soooo long, on my speed painted models I spend as much time, in some cases more time, cleaning the bloody mould lines and assembling the models as I do painting them. It's why, in many ways, I don't mind the snap fit mono-pose models that GW makes for some armies. Sure, they don't look as nice, sure, you can't pose them however you want, but my goodness they are so much faster from opening box -> finished model largely because they take less assembly time and also less mould line cleaning time (since the mould lines are easier to clean when there's just a single line that rings the model instead of a line on the arm, a line on the head, a line on the torso, etc etc).

For things like my Hormagaunts it was starting to piss me off so much that for the last couple of dozen I just glued them together and cleaned the mould lines AFTER assembly, ignoring ones that weren't in plain sight, sped up the process a lot but it still took ages.

I hate mould lines. I'd gladly pay a dollar or two per model to someone who would clean the damned things off for me (carefully of course).

Well it's good to hear that your 90% finished. their is light at the end of the tunnel mate.

i have situations where i do large batches and it seems like a never ending ordeal to simply get them finished. However i have a little method that helps me through these strenuous mental periods.

Never look to the future! lol yeah it sounds strange but it works for me, as i'm working i don't think about when it will be finished, i try not to look at what is next in line. Instead i do the opposite, i look back at what i have done and i only focus on the one thing i am currently doing. This way i attempt to remain oblivious as to the vast work ahead of me and i take solace in the work i am doing and comfort, sense of achievement from looking at the work i have already done.

Since you have already got 90% done i would look back and be like, wow thats a lot of mold lines erased, wow, amazing, and take cheer from that.

Good on ya mate, and remember don't look to the future lol

Yeah, it's much easier to say keep 5 or so out if you have a pile of something like 30 to go through. Looking back on the previous ones also helps keep them roughly the same.

I'm onto my 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th Space marine bikes, and I still have 18 riders to go. AND the attack Bike Side Cars. I'm really starting to despise mould lines on curved surfaces and the ones that go right into a recess where I can never seem to reach!

The worst is when you spent all this time cleaning mold lines and are finally in the painting process, you find those lines that still show up.

reps0l wrote:
The worst is when you spent all this time cleaning mold lines and are finally in the painting process, you find those lines that still show up.

ditto above - i think that is what hell will be like. putting lots of work into a mini, then your hitting the painting stage bit of detail here some extra stuff there...then...oh m god, a mold line that survived the extermination. GAAAAAAAAH!

I find it helps to do 5 - 10 models at a time. That way by the time I am done with those and bored out of my mind, I can switch over to priming and painting, when I am bored with doing the same 10 over and over again, I go back and start working on mold lines on the other models. It breaks the monotony and keeps it interesting.

 Rogues Gambit wrote:

ditto above - i think that is what hell will be like. putting lots of work into a mini, then your hitting the painting stage bit of detail here some extra stuff there...then...oh m god, a mold line that survived the extermination. GAAAAAAAAH!

I often get that, I sometimes rush the prep in order to get to the fun stuff. I have found that a wash after the basecoat stage shows any rogue mould lines that are likely to cause a problem and at this stage it is just a matter of using a fine file or a sharp blade to get rid of them and then patch in the basecoat. Checking after washing means that so far I haven't got to the final detail with a mould line in place (touch wood).

Mold lines are indeed a pain to clean up. Since I`m quite new to the hobby, it struck me that GW mold lines are relatively thick and the shape of some plastic parts is lost. The best way to deal with them are scraping with a hobby knife and sanding with some 1200 grit paper. I get mine at a vehicle supply shop that sells motor oil and headlamps and such. About 20 sheets for 12 euros and you can cut them to your preferred size. After that its just alternating. One evening of sanding, one (or two) of painting.works best.

At what point do you actually begin to enjoy the repetitive monotony of mechanical scraping? Maybe I'm cracking up, but I think I'm liking the "white noise"...send help

 AesSedai wrote:
At what point do you actually begin to enjoy the repetitive monotony of mechanical scraping? Maybe I'm cracking up, but I think I'm liking the "white noise"...send help

You start enjoying it when you are no longer truly human, when your mind devolves in to some ape-like creature who enjoys banging one rock against another rock, fascinated by the noise it makes, THAT'S when you start enjoying it.

I hate cleaning mold lines... I am at the point now where I would PAY good money to have all my models cleaned, built and primed... but especially cleaned (mold lines / flash).