Fixing Broken X-Wing Peg Mounts

What should you do if you need to repair broken peg mounts on X-Wing Miniatures ships?

Relax, it's not actually that horrible and the process isn't too hard. The plan is basically this:

1. Cut off the broken peg.
2. Drill a hole in the body of the ship.
3. Cut the female end from another peg.
4. Glue that end into the hole you drilled.

Easy, right? OK, the drill step could be a little tricky. If you want to avoid that, here are some other tips:

• Use the above method, but simply glue the female end to the bottom of your ship without worrying about drilling a hole for added stability.
• Roll a small cylinder of green stuff, push the male end of a peg in and let it dry. Once dry, clean up the green stuff and super glue to the bottom of your craft.
• Buy one of the kits out there that will allow you to magnetize your ships and convert.

If you're ready to learn how I fixed my ship, click on through.

Did you just find my ships and would like to see more photos of the completed fleet? I've got those too.

Building a 3D Game Board

Talk about older projects that deserve to be highlighted... OK, not directly Wargaming related though I could see applications for the skills you're about to see. My dad and I built a 3D game board many years back for an underwater Dungeons and Dragons campaign that my wife was running. (Speaking of, have you seen the Spell Abacus I designed?)

The idea is that for underwater combat, there's multiple levels that things could take place. It's easier to see what's going on since each level is clear. The whole thing tears down easily and is transportable.

Create an Airbrush Carrying Case

My wonderful wife picked me up a new airbrush a while back. It's another Iwata, but moving up from a 0.35mm to a 0.2mm and yes, it makes a difference. But before that I kept my airbrush on my hobby shelf, nothing fancy and now I have a second one to take care of. I wanted to make a nice case for it for a few reasons.

First and foremost I needed a nice case to store and protect them, but also because my Favorite Local Gaming Store has a painting bar with airbrush compressors and I've been working on getting a little more mobile with my hobby supplies.

Build a Painting Station

If you want to make the job of priming a bunch of small parts easier, then I recommend you build yourself a painting station. It lets you prime a whole bunch of parts all at once and gives you a way to hold on to smaller parts while priming or painting. (Meaning you won't get your oily fingers all over them and can paint them evenly.)

Actually took these photos back when I did my articles on colour theory, since I painted an example marine for each. This is a pretty straight forward tutorial actually.

Spell Abacus for Dungeons and Dragons

Something a little off-topic today, but that I think is pretty awesome and hopefully you will too.

I present to you a Wargaming Tradecraft original idea - The Spell Abacus. This tool will allow you to easily track how many spell slots you've used while playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Background

I've become a firm believer in gaming aids while playing copious amounts of Warmachine and decided to dream up something I could apply to the Wizard I'm playing in D&D at the moment. In D&D 5th ed, there's a set maximum number of spells that doesn't increase with your intellect. (The same applies to other spell-casting classes.)

At first I was using some of my coloured tokens to count spell slots, but recognized that as I leveled, this would become tricky to track. I then decided to build something a little grander.

Use

It's pretty straight forward...

• Each row represents a spell level.
• 1st level spells are at the top with 4 beads.
• Higher level spells are at the bottom with 1 bead.
• Before Game
• If you have a spell slot available, you should have a bead for it on the left side.
• For any spell slots you don't have access to, move those beads to the right side.
• During Game
• As you cast spells, move beads from the left side of the abacus to the right side.
• As you regain spells, move beads from the right side of the abacus to the left side.

Pipe Cleaner Barbed Wire

Borderlands styled minis

Today's tutorial is a simple demonstration on how to make cheap, great looking barbed wire. It's a pretty simple process and I've included a first for tutorials at Wargaming Tradecraft - video! (And fire!)

Cost

Pipe Cleaners - $1 pack from a Dollar Store.
Candle - $1 pack from a Dollar Store
Lighter - $1 from a Dollar Store

= For $3, you can make an armies worth of barbed wire.

Building an Airbrush Cleaning Station

Last week, I added Airbrush Paints to my long list of Airbrush Articles. This week I'm going to show you how to make your own airbrush cleaning station. What is it you ask? This allows you to spray out your airbrush at full strength without making a mess. Use it when gently cleaning between paints or for running a ton of water and airbrush cleaner through for a full clean.

If you're not much of a do-it-yourselfer, you can always find them online for about $30 or so, which isn't much, but what I'm going to show you will cost A LOT less. Something that some store-bought cleaning stations will include are filters to do a better job of handling the extra air that escapes but this tends to work just fine.

All it takes is some kind of small jar and a little bit of green stuff - practically free!