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Turret pins

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 10:23 am
by Zippy
I have been buying Micro Armour since the 70's.
have had very little to complain about, great service from GHQ.
What is grinding my gears is that GHQ keeps making the pins on the turrets smaller and smaller.
I don't glue the turrets I want them to turn but the you try turning them with the small pins and they fall off very easily
Really noticing this during my big stripping and repainting lots of old stuff while also getting new stuff ready to paint.
Haven't bought any C+C in ages but at least there turrets stay on, The pin on a C+C Pz III N is a 1/4" across and fits nicely into its socket.
Rant over
Mike

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 11:45 am
by Extra Crispy
I glue the turret to a map pin through the hull. The turret still spins but won;t fall off (and more importantly, won't get lost if it does!).

Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 4:56 am
by RedDragon
Extra Crispy:

I've found a similar method on GHQ ships I bought from others, it's pretty awesome if waaay more fiddly given the smaller sizes and tolerances involved.

Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 7:23 am
by sneaky pete
I have not bought any GHQ tanks in a while (nearly 20 years) so I can not speak to the shrinking turret pin, but have been spending some money over at the other guy so my advice may be a little off. To keep the turrets moving I have two different approaches.

1. Similar to Crispy... Drill a small hole through the bottom of the hull and line it up with the turret. Place a piece of paperclip through and superglue the pin in the turret bottom. Once dry I put the pin through the hull and bend the end at 90 degrees to allow the turret to rotate but not fall off. The ultimate cheap way, after all I did say I have been buying the other brand due to prices in army building.

2. Using 2mm BB and 1x2mm rare-earth magnets I drill into the hull and glue the magnet in place then drill into the turret and glue the BB. This allows rotation and it does hold the turret from falling off, but it still can be removed or knocked off without much force. Although more expensive $7 for 100 magnets from online and the BB $4 for 100 or less than 15 cents per tank for glue and parts. Despite being time consuming I still prefer this method.

I will try these on GHQ when the next sale goes up. I hope these ideas may help. I will try to take and post photos later.

Dan

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 12:20 pm
by sneaky pete
Paper clip through the bottom and bent on the other brand.
Image

6 x 2 mm magnet on bottom of GHQ to keep it on magnetic tray. You could drill the BB into the turret pin and glue magnet to the bottom to keep it largely in place. I need to strip these M-1s and get the turrets loose, they started life as terrain model kits in my Tankin' days hence the blue paint for Blue PLT (3rd).
Image

Hole for BB in turret and magnet in place in the hull on a T-34 from the other brand.
Image

Cheapest with GHQ is probably the map pin route which was described above, I just wanted to share how I handle the other brand too.

Dan

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:50 pm
by Extra Crispy
I like the paper cip idea...may have to steal that.

Magnets & Turrets

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 10:33 am
by 8ball
Here's a related post from a long time ago...Holy Moly...11 years ago.

http://www.ghqmodels.com/forum/viewtopi ... highlight=

Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2016 7:42 pm
by av8rmongo
I use a modification to 8ball's approach - and I give full credit to him for inspiring my adaptation. I replace the entire pin with a magnet, drill out the hull to accept it as seen here:

https://av8rmongo.wordpress.com/2013/04 ... t-madness/

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2016 9:36 am
by CBoy3
I usually glue them, and am happy with that. But once again, I see that Mongo has a great idea with the magnets. Kudos to you sir! I will look into this more when I am trying out your idea for the aircraft stands.

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2016 7:31 pm
by av8rmongo
CBoy3 wrote:I usually glue them, and am happy with that. But once again, I see that Mongo has a great idea with the magnets. Kudos to you sir! I will look into this more when I am trying out your idea for the aircraft stands.
Thanks for the kind words but it wasn't my idea, I stand on the shoulders of giants. Like you, I have glued my turrets for years. I move every couple of years and it seemed the best way to limit catastrophic losses in the event of a spilled box. I was never really happy with it on the game table though. I still have more than 70% of my collection to go in terms of conversion to magnets but I really do like the system. Hope it works a swell for you.