Banners & standards 3 - removable banner poles

2004-7-30

"Larger scale banner poles or two part ones are best made from brass rod & tube. Two part banners, where the top half can be removed for transport or storage may be discussed separately, if you ask. Nicely." - No one did. But anyway.

This one has been alluded to or mentioned in the two other articles, almost makes one wonder if people are afraid to visit the forum. It is a scary place.

Even so, I'd started to make a two piece banner pole anyway because I was expecting someone to want to know a bit more...


The third article in this 'series', for want of a better description, covers creating a specific model conversion. The model itself is un-important, it is used as an example of the technique. I just needed something to show what I wanted to illustrate and this model happened to be the first suitable contender out of the box.

I say conversion because it differs from the stock miniature that can be bought in a blister pack, it doesn't involve hacking into the metal though. While other parts from plastic kits are used they just happen to be in boxes of assorted stuff and suited what I had in mind.







I would have ideally liked to do this with a 54mm miniature to have scope for some very detailed work but I didn't have one available that was suitable. The miniature itself is a 'Wolf Guard' from the Space Wolves Chapter produced by Games Workshop.

This photograph shows the basic components I gathered before starting, other pieces were also hunted for as the need arose but I didn't know I was going to use extra pieces when I snapped the picture.







Components & Materials:
1. A miniature, hereafter know as 'Bob' the standard bearer.
2. brass rod & tube.
3. Kneadatite.
4. polystyrene cement.
5. superglue.
6. Assorted detailing bits 'n' bobs: a plastic skeleton, left over space marine sprue bits etc.

Tools:
1. scalpel.
2. needle files.
3. pin vice.
4. fine tooth hacksaw.
5. sculpting tools.


Stage 1.

Bob happened to be cleaned up and already stuck to his base so that was one less chore. The first thing I did was position one of the large banner poles made in the first article against the miniature to determine how it would look. Once I'd got an idea of scale it was time to start cutting the brass tube. Incidentally, I think it was 1/16" tube and 1/32" rod respectively but I can't be certain, I forgot to make a note of which packet I got it from. The important bit is that rod fits inside the tube nicely without any slack. All K&S Metals brass does this, an excellent thought from the manufacturer.







Going back to the sketch pad - one of the banner pole designs had a specific feature, a split at the hand holding the pole. The tube that creates the banner pole is in two pieces, the lower piece terminating in the hand.

I had to do some work on the arm that was to hold the banner pole because the stock arms were no where near the pose I required. In the end I used a combination of 3 plastic arms! The first gave me a suitable fist which was removed at the cuff, another (a left arm!) gave me an elbow at the right angle and the last was for a right shoulder section which had to be filed down to meet the body correctly. The top of the arm is covered by the shoulder pad but I'm fussy.




Having the hand rotate at the wrist allows fine tuning of the position with the pole temporarily fitted through it into the base. Speaking of that, the hand was drilled and sub-assembled with the rest of the arm then checked for position before gluing the shoulder to the metal miniature. Once this was secure, the drill was passed down through the hand and into the base so that the lower section of the banner pole could be secured with a generous blob of superglue under the base.


Stage 2.






The upper section of the banner pole was constructed in the same way as the simple ones discussed in the first article. The upright section was finished to the correct length to fit on top of the fist holding the pole. Once cool and cleaned up a length of brass rod was pushed through and down into the lower section already attached to the miniature. This should be as long as possible for maximum strength. The rod was then trimmed to leave about 1" in the top section of the pole and secured inside with superglue.

That's it for the pole itself, very simple to make and don't forget that it's scalable. I've used exactly the same idea to put banners on vehicles - the only difference is that the 'socket' is hidden in the bulk of the vehicle body.







Now on to specific detailing for this model...


I'd already planned to cap the banner pole with a skull, hence the plastic skeleton in the components list. While the glue was drying on the pole itself, I carefully removed the bottom jaw from the skull and filed the underside to remove excess material and make it flat. A shallow hole was then drilled in the bottom to make a positive 'socket' before gluing it onto the banner pole.






The skull used to be 'Boris', Bob's best mate and drinking buddy, until he had a nasty accident that we won't go into here... as a mark of respect for his fighting spirit Bob made the banner in honour of Boris from his wolf pelt cloak!

More details: Boris has a purity seal stuck on him and three service studs added to the forehead. The studs were made from 0.5mm plastic rod. First a small hole was drilled in the skull and a short length of plastic rod glued in with superglue. Once the glue has cured, the rod was trimmed to leave a stud. Repeat process for other studs.

At this stage I decided I wanted pole ends for the cross piece as well, so back to the box of leftovers...

aha! we have a contender, well two actually - to plastic space ork arms. These have a loop on the handle that would make perfect pole ends. Hmm, they also have some cool bolts holding the axe head on, these trimmed off carefully made a bolt holding the cross of the banner pole itself.









Some eagle eyed readers may have noticed the small strip of green in the previous photograph under the shoulder pad. This isn't to fill gaps, there aren't any, but a sling for Bob's trusty boltgun.

I thought that not even a veteran of Bob's standing would charge headlong into battle with only a rag on a stick to pummel the enemy with so I needed him to have a gun. Since a weapon in the powerfist would look cheesy, I thought I'd have his weapon slung around the back of his arm out of the way.

The loop on the back of the bolter for the strap to go through was yet another ork axe handle. A small strip of green was moulded through this and aligned with the strap going around the shoulder. Note that I didn't attach the weapon, just modelled it to appear as if the strap is continuous, simply because it's much easier to paint separate parts like this and then assemble them.

I also noticed that the banner pole didn't look right at the back of the hand holding it. The hole through the fist was too close to the edge so I remedied this by sculpting a new armour plate for the back of the hand.












And finally, here he is, complete with a couple of wolf tails robbed from the space wolf accessories sprue hung on the banner pole. The rune stones hanging from the pole ends were made at the same time as the banner itself. Small diamonds of kneadatite were formed on a piece of lubricated plastic and the runes pressed into the surface with the tip of a scalpel. The ropes were made by carefully twisting fine copper wire that had been threaded through holes in the banner and runes - (the holes were pressed through with a pin before the putty cured).


This banner pole is pretty strong and resilient. This was proved when I accidentally dropped it carrying it outside to spray undercoat. Actually I dropped it on two different occasions and the only damage was a slight bend in the rod where it meets the hand, easily fixed.

I suppose I might paint it now to see how good my sculpting looks.