Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Mini holder for painting

So, I have been painting a lot lately, and it gets me annoyed sometimes to have to figure out a decent way to hold the mini. I know almost everyone uses some of the tacky stuff for posters and what-have-you, but I cannot seem to get that stuff to hold the mini well enough. Then I recalled a holder I had seen years ago and figured I would try my hand at it. What resulted was a quick afternoon project that didn't cost much and is working really well.  The beauty of these is that they are totally adjustable, hold the fig like an iron vice and then pop the fig off with no hassle at all, and no cleaning up tacky residue or anything like that.

The fig holders are adjustable to hold any mini from 25mm base to 70mm base, square, oval or round. Very handy. Here is what you need to make a set of 10.  The total cost for me was about $25.

- 40" long 3/4" dowel rod, cut into 4" lengths - I find the 4" gives a good handle on the fig without being too big.
- Some Matte paper, heavy card-stock or even sheet styrene, cut into 2.5" squares. Need a total of 11 of these, 1 template and the rest for the mini holders
- 40 #8 Machine screws - 3/4 Long
- 80 #8 Washers
- 40 #8 Nuts
- 40 Rubber faucet washers (My ACE hardware had these for $0.20 each, most expensive part)
- 10 Flush head nails (Make sure these have a very low profile but wide head (keep the jokes to yourself)).
- Wood glue - use your fave, I used Elmer's carpenter glue
- Compass to draw lines on the template