5 Easy Steps for Assembling Metal Miniatures!!! How to Pin and Prep Pewter Models for AoS, 40k, D&D! 

Horse background and the word GLUE, very aggressive. Very metal

I can't get over your dead-pan emotion, combined with smiles and jokes scattered in. Subbed all day long.

Great video! I have always just used the simple 3 step method - glue, hold and pray

15 years of building models and i'd never heard of cutting an X where you want to drill a hole . brilliant !

Great video! I belong to a generation of modelers whose creed was: "Metal is Good, plastic is Evil". Reasonable at that time, but of course now it's no more. I really enjoied it 👍

You drop this RIGHT AFTER I buy a metal Screaming Bell. QUEEN,

Just found a box of pewter minis that I've had in storage since I quit gaming back in the 80s. Figured I'd paint them up and sit them on a shelf. This video was helpful and modern techniques seem WAY better than what we had when I was growing up. Nonetheless, the 80s were still the best decade ever. Thanks for the video.

I'm just starting to catch up on your videos and I love how you present your subjects. The dead-pan delivery on the jokes are totally in my alley of enjoyment! Steven Wright is a personal hero of mine. I've got a lot of content to go through. Thanks for your content!

Definitely would like to see them painted. I’m interested in how you paint to a character’s background or story.

This video is giving me 'nam flashbacks of my early days in the mini hobby. *shudders. I'm so glad that plastic mini fidelity has improved to the point is has.

Pro Tip: When using a hobby knife to cut the flash off of metal miniatures, super glue works well for repairing your thumb after the knife slips and cuts it open. And while Insta-Cure is great for setting your super glue bandage, it also gets very hot.

4:53 I died a little inside

I am in hurricane Sally recovery mode here in Pensacola, and I am so HAPPY to get a Dana Howl tutorial. I love your wit and subtle humor. Thank you.

Great tips, I too grew up with cool old metal models and still enjoy the extra steps sometimes, thanks for all the reminders and new tips

Even now I still like and appreciate the weight in some of my figures.

Finally I can stop the legs falling off my Shelob miniature, thank you! You have a new subscriber. :) ❤

You probably want to make sure your "hobby clippers" are rated to handle steel when you use floral wire or paper clips. Fine electronic clippers as they are often used for Hobby purposes, often are only designed to cut through copper and not through iron.. which will do a number on your "hobby clippers".

I love your deadpan style!

Just found your channel. Thank you for making this guide.

The "glue" title sequence had me rolling

Thanks! It's surprising how grew tutorials are out there that cover basic stuff like ill-fitting slottabase tabs. Much appreciated!

Lol, I don’t know why but when you did the “Glue” intro, and the horses were standing there, I kinda lost it. That was pretty funny.

Excellent video, Dana! Looking forward to seeing how you choose to paint these older D&D minis. Cheers!

3:23 Oh no! You are a bad bad person, Dana, who made the coffee come out my nose.

Old non-painted minis (boxes of shame) & bit box (for kit bashing)...okay I’m convinced your a legit gamer!

Thanks, Dana. Your videos are 🔥

Excellent and entertaining video. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

The horse-glue transition 👨‍🍳💋

Yes, I would like to see you paint them as I have that set as well as quite a few others and I am about to start painting metal minis!!

As I get ready to take the first steps in Relicblade this has been really helpful!

Love your sense of humor, and yes would like to see you paint these.

Incredibly clear speech: awesome tutorial, definitely. Thanks a lot.

Great vid!! Love your humor🤣🤣

3 years later, and your video is still saving lives (of metal minis.) This is the first time I’ve ever done this, and it worked flawlessly. I can’t wait to paint my now built, (and properly clipped and shaved down) kroot shaper.

I honestly don't care what you paint. The main reason I like your videos is that you explain your thought process and inspirations. Most tutorials just tell you what specific paints to use, I appreciate you explaining why to use a specific paint. I like the last goblin video a lot, your thought process while you paint is invaluable.

DnD Chaimail was a lot of fun back in the day.

A bit late to the party but 2 tips from someone who's been putting metal models together since the early 90's. 1: washing the model can be done before removing the moldlines too but the most important moment is to do it after the cutting, sanding and filing process. Don't want to have dusty particles on the model when priming. And 2:. use a small round file rather than the thin straight one Dana is using . You can put more strength onto it and more important, you can reach all the narrow spots and parts, giving you much more control. Also remember you can file down part of the base if it's a massive fixed one ( like e.g. Reaper Dark heaven ). But for that a bigger file is needed than Army Painter provides. Also some sanding paper works. And for those who don't like Greenstuff, Milliput works netter as it can be thinned down with water to make sculpting/fitting easier. And if you don't have that, wall filler ( some kinda plaster ) works ok too but sculpting in detail after you finished it, nope. A few scratches can be done but that's about it.

I remember the Chainmail game! I so wanted to play it after I saw it in a local convention. But I had no money for it because I was playing Magic and Confrontation at that time. Later I wanted to use those minis for my D&D games...but they are very difficult to find.

Thanks for a good tutorial, started painting infinity models which are all metal-based so found this video really helpful.

Fantastic video and very thorough. As for rods for pinning, I've been using aluminum wire used for beads. It comes in various widths and you can get spools pretty cheap at the hobby shops like Michael's.

Great video this really did help a lot

Great tip, thanks so much Dana!

Great video. One tip I would add is if the models are new in the box, it’s good to do a quick inventory on all the parts to make sure everything is there. This might sound a bit too rudimentary, but there are times I’ve gotten minis from a company that were missing a part or an entire mini. Thanks for the video.

This was so helpful.

Would love to see these painted! I looooove seeing rare, weird old models painted up.

amazing as always!

Great video!

Very helpful, thanks!

Very good video! Considering Infinity still produces (really nicely high detailed) metal miniatures, I'm glad that you've taken the time to delve into specific topics regarding them!

Still useful two years later!

Nice :D this is really relevant to me as I've just cleaned off and filed down some old metal grey knights a friend gave me. I wasn't actually going to pin them but after seeing this and having to clean lots of excess old super glue from the models I think I'm going to give it go.

Great video Dana! I've been painting and collecting metal minis since the mid 90s (and in fact am still trying to get a bunch of oldhammer together) and sometimes I forget that a lot of people didn't grow up with them. Some excellent pieces of advice for sure - the dot of paint is a favourite from years back :) A couple of other old tips and tricks I use: 1. For marking holes for the pin vice, a blackhead needle (which is also great for sculpting green stuff) is strong enough to get enough of a mark to guide the drill-bit. 2. For older and slightly dried green stuff, try using a scalpel handle or even a pen case as a rolling pin on a clean surface that has been dampened with water to stop it from sticking. It's quick and thorough and makes you feel like a baker ;D Thanks for the awesome videos!

Great guide

Great content. it's really important to pin these metal minis. I tend to do so with resin too especially if i have to glue arms or hands. If the gap is not too large it can be fill with super glue and baking soda or talc (baby powder) it creates a strong bond instantly and can be used as super glue accelerant. Thanks for the video

I love Gnolls, great job ❤

I swear I thought I was subscribed before ! Well, I miss your most recent videos but it will be NO MORE !

Great tips and tricks. The last one I'd recommand would be to first set a varnish undercaot (before the classic black/white zenithal), so that the paint doesn"t come off from any shock after several years. Got some battle sisters i can't touch much now haha. Even a pretty light one will do the trick.

Your editing and humour is so silly and I love it

Thank you so much! Im working on my first 2 pewter minis (Fuegan and Baharroth 40k minis) and this was super useful! And I thought resin was bad...

Really helpful. Thank you very much,

Some friends have been talking about getting back into Warmachine and some of the older sculpts still include a lot of metal, so I'll definitely be remembering this for future use

Paint theme in a old sword and sorcery art style. Should work nicely for some of the models I think and I'm curious to see how you're gonna achieve that.

This was very helpful. Thanks very much ;)

Thank you!

Great stuff Dana, im old school so its great to have a refresher class course on this subject, just in case if i got any of the steps wrong. Lol

The wrestling references and dry delivery....I died

Mmm nostalgia. Now we need to go the whole hog and cover white metal soldering like we had to do before that new fangled 'super glue' came out ! I forget how bothersome gluing and pinning was now that plastic is the norm. Thanks for another great video !

Loved the horses and centaur.

Just watched this whole vid, whilst also having extensive knowledge in this area......must be doing something right.

great these vids are instructive and hilarious

I'd like to see you paint these guys, but I've got no ideas for the paint scheme. Also the pinning definition bit got me. That was great

This is possibly the greatest video on the internet. watching you try to stay deadpan while saying words that would normally make you giggle is adorable and hilarious! Thank you for cheering up a miserable day :D

I use JB weld for any and all base gluing and it works very, very good. Also, I figured I would suggest you notch each of the paper clips before you use them as a pin, or you can use something like a metal ribbed paper clip, they are ribbed to hold onto paper, so using them as a pin they work great as the glue holds onto the ribs. Your Green stuff is like JB Weld, 2 parts, once mixed, it is a great bond.

This humor is KILLING me! Love your videos. Paint those minis up, please!

That horse transition was a thing of beauty.

I vote for painting them. How? Your choice, Dana. You could always refer to the box art or just go and pick some uncommon colors. I'm just here to enjoy your videos.

red dot: great tip!

Awesome video. The tip with the red paint was really useful. I'd like to see you paint them. Preferably with paints and some sort of brush.

Love this video! Would be very interesting to see your take on painting from a theme or scenario. Maybe characters cloaked in blues emanating from bioluminescent fungi of the Underdark? Or adventures who have been pulled into a wizard’s pocket dimension that’s housed in a painting and now their look is that of the painting’s art style (e.g. sketch, pointillism, impressionist watercolor)? Your vapor wave Necrons captured this really well, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen someone do this with more traditional fantasy miniatures! Thanks for the vids!

Nice, what i used to do was use an electric hobby drill both to cut parts of the models and also to do holes; and to put both parts togetheri just bough steel wire on the hardware store, cut it and insert it as you've shown. To fill the gaps what i used was Tamiya Body Putty and applied it with a hobby spatula or knife and it use to work well.

A hot tip for that army painter pinvice: The additional drillheads are in the grip, like the part that spins in your palm. You can take out that spinny part and find additional holders for the bigger drillbits.

I have always used garden wire for pinning. It has a plastic casing, has just the right stiffness and is really cheap :)

*Usually* I am more excited by the painting, but this is good and practical knowledge. One thing I am wondering about, though, is what is the best way of adapting a ‘slotta’ model to an unspecialised base. I mean, pinning, yeah, but that assumes a certain chunkiness to the feet that is not always present, and even if I had a lot of army boots in my parts box maybe this fairy doesn't like army boots. No, I mean, of course the fairy likes army boots, what fairy wouldn't jump at the chance to go all stompa stompa, but it doesn't necessarily fit the scene I was thinking to paint. This comment isn't going well but you see what I mean?

Yes, I would like to how you choose to paint this set. I have been thinking of getting this set and its sister set.

Ancient Metal Models of A Forgotten Age

Dig that flannel 👍

On pinning. I use a thumb tack to create a pilot hole for the drill bit. It helps guide the drill until you have a good starter hole for the metal Serling... I mean Rod.

BTW, if you are thinking about filling the gap with just superglue, or are looking for a cheap accelerator, you can sprinkle a little bit of Baking Soda! It creates a stronger bond and can fill gaps. Thank you very much for the pinning tutorial, I very much appreciate it for my shiny new battletech figures!

Hearing someone talk about “growing up in the 2000s” to refer to how things used to be makes me feel so old….

Do the thing!

All the “Rod”s, love it. Rod Serling FTW. PS: Battletech grognards sill have few options BUT metal models for many units.

Lol, the horses on the glue slide

Good to know that release agent can also influence glue. I always washed my resin pieces after assembling, no issues so far, but with the infinity metal model I always struggled. Also I see no way to pin those, cause that would have been my obvious choice, but I have no idea how I would pin a super small shoulder into a shoulder socket. (cause of the lack of depth in the arm)

Yay, more D&D miniature goodness! Thanks for posting. Yes I’d enjoy watching you paint them in a future video.

Please show painting =] . Also would love to see how you paint Older DnD stuff from the 80s, I ordered a bunch off ebay and want to gather as much info before i tackle taking them to my hobby table. Great Content

Boy wish I'd seen this before literally just putting 60+ pewter models on slotabases. For one thing had to shave down a few bases to fit in, never occurred to me to bend others to fit tighter. Hope the superglue holds! 😁

I'd love to see how you paint them. I'd also like to see how to strip old paint off of metal models too.

Very good video. Bookmarked. Subscribed. Thumbs-up. I recently got into the 28mm ultramodern wargaming miniatures world. Empress, Spectre, Eureka are three big players in this genre. I finally tried to glue together my Delta Force miniatures from Spectre Miniatures. Total fail. Compared to the parts in this video and all the others I've come across, the parts of the 28mm wargaming miniatures are significantly smaller. Mostly, it's bonding a weapon with the hands to the figures wrist stumps...or bonding a shoulder with arm and pistol/rifle. When its a shoulder bonding that includes the arm and a hand & rifle the angle is of utmost importance because that rifle is going to have to fit into the other hand of the figure. The minis I tried had the tiny nipple on one piece with a shallow indentation on the other piece. 9 times out of 10 I couldn't get things to line up properly even with those pieces as a guide. Sometimes I would apply a drop of super glue and press the two pieces together...in this case there is no tiny nipple/indentation. Its a tiny wrist that I'm trying to glue a hand & rifle to. I can't get the pieces to stay still and let the glue do its work. The two flat metal surfaces just slide against each other. I've asked very experienced painters/assemblers if they are pinning things together and the reply is always "No". That doesn't surprise me as there is often hardly enough space to drill a hole, like in the case of trying to glue two pieces of wrist together. I've got plenty of other miniatures to keep me busy, but I am going to have to figure out how to do this especially since my favorite Miniatures company, Spectre Miniatures, has switched to a multi-piece construction process in hopes of eliminating severely bent rifle barrels & RPGs. The diameter of these weapons is so small that just bending them back into proper position will cause the rifle barrel to break off or the RPG to snap into two pieces. If I can't figure out how to do this I won't be able to buy their miniatures in the future.

Bright green base rims!

I brought that same Army Painter drill......The larger bit it comes with is too big for the chuck! Is a nice size to hold, ergonomic but useless with any bit 2.5mm diameter or larger. Fine for paperclip width bits but no good for drilling out 40k heavy weapon gun barrels - which was the reason I brought it lol