Ultimate Guide to Miniature Assembly - Hobby Cheating 294 

The only thing I would add with the information about the clipper/nippers is to cut the smaller weaker section of the part first and then the more stable section. If you do the inverse often times the force of clipping will move the part and break the weaker section. Idk if that makes any sense - its important with cutting the necron parts.

I really appreciated this. So often content creators just say "remove the mould lines using an exacto knife" and I'm left wondering "...okay.. how?" But this cleared it up!

Saturday Morning Hobby Cheating is my new Saturday morning cartoons...

"the most common thing we hear about is liquid green stuff, it's garbage, throw it away." Got a big laugh. Agreed.

I was going to mention using extra thin to feather out sprue goo but nope, got it in there at the end. Great video. I first started using sprue goo doing Gunpla kits that weren't going to be painted. Since the used coloured plastic, you could match your gap fill to the part. Great tool.

I have been waiting for you to hit this topic for some time now. Thank you!! Far more detail and tips than others I have seen, yet still extremely simple and straightforward. Cleaning mold lines is my absolute least favorite part of the process and it seems to take me forever. By the time I am ready to paint, I am sometimes close to burnout. Have used sprue goo but never in concert with the pure cement. No brainer when you think about it-- and far less cleanup than leaving the goo blob to set and then scrape and sand. Can't wait to try that. Thanks again for this video!

Everyday is a school day - I've assembled thousands of miniatures and settled on gel polystyrene cement as a happy medium for bonding and gap filling, but using Tamiya extra thin to smooth down any bumps and scrapes is brilliant. That's an excellent understanding of the material, your tools and their properties 👏👏👏

Thank you!!! This is exactly what I needed to get started on my Squidmar bust 😊❤️❤️. My first Unassembled project!

2:40 THANK YOU, "don't cut towards yourself" is one of those pieces of advice you get told as a kid because it's easier and more failsafe than teaching proper draw cutting technique but then so many people carry that forward as if it were this inviolable commandment of all bladed tool use...

you can also use the plastic cement to fix stress marks from clipping as well or to help remove set in designs if you are trying to make a flat surface where an icon used to be on the miniature.

Nice flex with the cursed cities heroes sprue, Vince. =P Also your dog's bark 4 minutes in sounded like part of the track. Pretty epic.

Some great gluing and filling tips in this vid! Thanks!

this is the best guide, I wish I had this when I started :)

Some golden nuggets there. And I did chuckle at the Liquid Greenstuff comment even though I'm a personal fan :) The tips on the easy-to-build stuff carries over well to other plastic kits too. I used to find that the pegs and holes were made with such small tolerances that any glue in the hole would force the parts apart. Clipping the pegs (tapered and/or shorter) helps stop this. Great video. Worth every penny.

Thanks for these videos! They're super useful.

Thank you! Very useful as always. :) Very different from the 2 part epoxy I had to use 30 years ago! :D

Funny just as I'm following a guide to put together a squad of Grot guard Scions this pops up, big love as always on this goldmine you are mining for us all !! : )

Harbor Freight has a nice set of inexpensive mini files that work great for me. They also have a decent pair of mini nippers for a couple of dollars, not to mention inexpensive bfine grit sand paper. It has become my hobby building supply store.

I started putting together my first minis today, from the Marvel Crisis Protocol game. Used waaaaay too much thin cement and lost some detail on Iron Man, and broke his raised hand. Had to reorder that figure, but its a good lesson about patience and using a little to go a long, long way.

Such a great video, thanks! Can I go back and fill gaps on models I've already primed?

Super helpful video. Thank you!

After re-watching this one I realized that I have never tried to smooth a sprue goo gap fill with plastic glue. That might be a great timesaver! Sanding down the overspil of the sprue goo can be time intensive. Ps I tend to make notes so I remember your tips (and tips from other sources) so I don't forget them. Must have not noted this one down earlier. Has be rectified.

Late to the party for this video, but just wanted to say that tamiya's extra thin cement is the exact same stuff as their airbrush cleaner but in a nicer bottle + brush. For those looking to save a couple bucks you can get significantly more out of bottle of their airbrush cleaner and a brush you don't mind ruining. Just be careful that your bristles aren't a plastic that'll melt as well.

Assemble enough minis in one go and enjoy the high 😂 Great video Vince!

Great video, as always. How do you remove mold lines from weird and awkward angles, like, say, the mirror on a Bloodwrack Shrine?

WHAT WAS THAT WEIRD CULT SYMBOL AND OMINOUS MUSIC AT THE END?!?!

Make a sprue toothpick, apply some plastic glue to the gap, then rub the spruethpick back and forth in teh crack. it'll melt into the crack and there will be a lot less cleanup than painting on sprueglue

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

Thanks for another great video. Quick question about Sprue goo. I made myself up some and it worked great (thank you!). However, after maybe three or four weeks the consistency got a little thick the next time I went to use it. Is this natural? It's in an airtight container so I was a little surprised the consistency was different after a few weeks. I added some Tamiya Thin back into the sprue goo to thin it down again, but just wondering if that is a common issue. I'm working on planning out my first true display quality army and I want to really nail the build process better than I have in the past. Thank you Vince!

I always wash the sprues before clipping. I feel like I may be doing it out of a compulsive need to though, since I'm not sure the plastics have the same "mold release" additive issue that resin and metal models do.

Marco NJM tip, Isopropanol can ne used to melt Milliput to get it to fit perfectly into the cracks.

I tend to place my finger on the flat of the scalpel (the FLAT! not the EDGE!) to stop it chattering when I scrape with it.

This very good video mr vee! 🥰🐶

Best guide I’ve seen in my 50 years assembling plastic. I just hate it when the other painters here all just say use superglue! You’re my hobby hero ever. Btw what airbrush and size do You use? I just broke my badger and need something else

Great video Vince! What would you say the consistency of the sprue goo should be? I feel like mine is a little thin.

Great vid, I always struggle with assembly. Have you ever tried to sharpen your side cutters? I am thinking of trying that for a vid, I have some fairly average army painter ones and want to try to make them sharper

Well it appears that I'll have to memorize the following "Hobby Cheating Episode 294: Ultimate Guide to Miniature Assembly". This way when I run into someone who is either thinking about or just starting in the hobby has a damn good, if not currently the best guide for building their models! Also as a side note, I feel that people tend to have great control of strength and precision when cutting towards yourself. I say this as someone with decades of construction work experience. I feel that is mostly because of the muscle groups that we tend to use cutting towards oneself are forearm, wrist and hand. However when cutting away it is very easy for us to end up using also our upper arm muscle group, which would be only the Tricep. With the Tricep we tend to be using too much strength and too fast most of the time, because it is only for extending/straightening our forearm.

Thank you for the step by step instruction on miniature assembly. Believe it or not, there aren’t that many tutorial videos on RU-vid of people showing how to do this. It’s mostly just very rough, gloss over explanations without demonstrating how it’s done. For someone like me that’s just starting to try and get into the hobby this was invaluable! Thank you

Yet another late comment here: if anyone's already bought Liquid Green Stuff and don't want to just throw it away, it's much better suited for fixing models you THOUGHT you gap-filled, but then notice light "gap" indentations along the seams AFTER you've primed. I also found that if you thin it down heavily it runs into seams and gaps very easily almost like panel liner and helps fix things that way. But yeah, since I read somewhere it's technically just mega-thick Citadel paint, it works much better over primer as sort of a cosmetic touch up goop than a true gap filler. I only really use it nowadays in spots where it's too difficult to work milliput or sprue goo into tight crevices, like an armpit, etc. Dap some in and then follow up with a wet brush.

I've manage to get a hang of the liquid green stuff and your saying there a better way :O. How long do you spend and how do you save time scraping plastic and filing each indivual mini?

Hi boss! How about a video about bat wings? Like bloodthirster's ones or Maw Krusha's. I think It will be a very interesting topic to talk about, exspecally the multiple style for paint membranes.

this is great but as time passes everyone develops their own strange building hobby 'preferences' and 'peculiarities'. I for example have two x-acto knife holders, one marked for sharp blade (with white tape on the handle) and one with blunt blade (marked with black tape on the handle that I use for for getting rid of mold lines). I even have a super glue applicator with handle which can only be described as looking like the 'the world's smallest tuning fork' with a small metal end - it actually works really well, holds the super glue on the end and then it applies the glue when it touches the plastic and because the end is metal you can burn off the super glue off it.

I keep getting scared by this weird symbol I've seen twice now. Is lord Cthulhu making his return next week?

Very helpful! Quick question; do you happen to know where you got that little hobby blade on the black handle? Or know what they are called? It's so unique, I bet it's really helpful getting those little buggers off of the model!

Majestic!

I actually have a question relating to the Vallejo plastic putty. My experience was that it became water repellent meaning my rattlecan basecoats weren't sticking. I also have a similar thing with greenstuff sculpts. Am I missing a step?

Hey Vince, not sure you have that link for the Sprue Goo video linked.

Super helpful

I have a question on the Sprue Goo, in the old video you use an old FW ink glass bottle but here you use the original glue bottle. Are you still just putting a little sprue on the bottom and adding glue over or do you now just drop Spruebits in to the OG glue bottle newly opened or using an old one dropping in the glue over the sprue? Basically if I buy a new Glue b. should I pour it out in another container and then some of it back again to cover a base layer of sprue or open and YOLO drop in spruebits?

This is great, but when’s the gold paint comparison video coming out ;) ?

Maybe a silly question but just starting back into hobby after a loooong (90s) break. Do you ever prime individual parts before assembly? If so when, and how does it affect assembly?

Love the matching teaser! All hail the You Tube Algorithm Gods...

would sprue goo work on non plastic too? Is the idea it bonds itself to plastic or will it just harden to shape over a gap?

Sprue goo is great stuff

What was that at the Vince? Birthday? End of the world?

For anyone that really wants to cut towards their thumbs, @Terrainosaur had a great tip: use a thimble!

hey so i got an order in i placed from the hobby shop i deal with. I ordered Vallejo Panzer Aces 70.310 Old Wood, amongst other purchases i also made. I seen a dude with a youtube channel named Panzermeister 36 using it for German tool handles and its a nice almost buff color. The stuff they sent me is Old Wood but its 40% darker. I dont blame the hobby store, they're actually awesome and their selection and prices rock. They actually credited me the paint without me having to send it back but that's not why im upset. I'm disappointed in Vallejo. Makes me wonder now how many of the other colors from the model, model air, and panzer aces lines are mismatched in my collection. Just thought id share this with you. I wrote vallejo providing them the numbers on the bottle. I don't care about the $4.00 it cost me, its just the disappointment in the brand. What was Jose drunk when he added too much pigment into the pot over there in Spain?

What is the knife thing at 2:14? I kinda want one

I really can't get sanding. Like how do you sand anything on a mini. Almost everything is either inaccessible or has detail near or in the way that you will hit with paper unless you somehow shape it super tiny, and even then it's hard to tell what you are hitting with it.. :C no one els seems to have this issue.

Hmm. So what is going to happen 28th of May 2021? You birthday? Also: How do you apply superglue without getting it on your fingers? I constantly get some on mine.

I just bought a pack of 7 Kobolds without realizing I needed to assemble them

I almost get anxiety seeing the way you slather the Tamiya extra thin on the model. I feel like the glue tends to get out of control and run into details and crevices almost like an oil pin wash. How do you prevent that? Or does it not even matter?

Does sprue goo work on resin figures?

Hey Vince! When's "Painting FEC in 24 hours" coming out? :)

Sweet!

Watch out, badger bites can be dangerous!

Vince can you do a top 10 aos warscrolls video

Thanks Vince! Are you planning the same for resin too? (I dare not ask for metal, but you know I should, right? ;) But I've watched your video about metal... :-) Oh, unless...)

Great video! Do you have a sense of about how long you spend clipping/assembling/cleaning up mold lines on a model? I find it has taken me up to an hour on some of these Cursed City models (I may trying too hard though).

what type of scalpel

👍🏻👍🏻

"squiges out" is that a technical term?

😊

Remember to like and comment to appease the almighty algorithm 😁👍🏼

Who says don't cut towards yourself? That's exactly what you're meant to do since you're controlling the blade

I only cut towards myself. Any other way will destroy the miniature

This part is so boring and tedious

Post-credit teaser trailer?