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I purchased some of the old metal and plastic devastators and was wondering if you needed to pin the weapons to the plastic bodies or if the glue bond would be enough? This will be my first time working with metal parts and wanted to make sure to do it correctly.

You don't have to pin it, but a pinned bond will always be stronger than an unpinned one.

Now's as good a time to learn as any- get a pin vise and 1mm bit if you don't already have them, and you can use a paperclip as a pin.

You don't *need* to pin them, but you will need to counterweight the base somehow (because the mini will be top-heavy now - metal weapon and pack on a plastic body).

I managed to find a bunch of old metal RT Marines (the ones that had one piece metal bodies and plastic arms, weapons, packs and pauldrons) and pinned the bits to those. The metal bodies added enough mass that they weren't so top-heavy anymore.

And because they were all metal, I pinned all of the things.

I would definitely recommend strengthening the bonds somehow, whether it's pinning or GS. I remember those metal devastators back in the day. Great looking models but damn they sucked trying to get them to stick together..

Definitely worth pinning, will save a lot of hassle in the future. If you want to weigh the base down, just glue a penny in the underside of the base.

I didn’t pin mine, and they’ve been fine. But I agree that had I known better at the time, I probably would have done something extra.

Good luck putting them together. Getting everything to line up while holding things waiting for the glue to dry was not fun. Pinning might help with that actually.

Just another vote for pinning. The suggestions for using some Greenstuff are good too.

A comment on the base. I found on mine a penny wasn't near enough. I found thick washers a better value. Bought them same size as base and just added them with goop. Yes, the base is a little taller depending on the thickness of the washers you buy (you have options) but was much sturdier. does ruin the magnet in the base for transporting though.

I didn't pin mine, and I regretted it.

I remember when they came out, and never pinned them, Just make sure you dry fit first as there are two arms similar but at slightly different angles.