Straightening Bent Pewter

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Brock Savage

Cosmic Barbarian
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Hey guys, I could use some tips for straightening bent pewter miniatures. Specifically, both spears and swords arrived bent. They are separate pieces and I am having difficulty getting them straight. I know that when painted any irregularity is going to look 10x worse.
 
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With spears and swords, the keys are to...
1. See exactly where the bend is.
2. Figure out if there is any twisting. If you don't correct the twisting, it will never bend back straight.
3. Use something to grip just below the bend, like tweezers with soft plastic protectors, or a soft-grip hemostat.
4. Heating it very slightly.
5. After straightening it, put a very light coat of the strongest and thickest cyanoacrylate you can find, making sure not to obliterate texture. This works better with spears, which are usually painted dark with a small surface area. Bigass swords you want to be more careful.

Then it's just a matter of being slow as hell, and bending and/or twisting it back into shape. You might want to use plastic forceps with a wide tip to squeeze down on the bend and help fix the straightening and correct any minor bumps.
 
Also, sometimes having something flat against the bent area so it doesn't double bend on you can be very helpful. Other than that CRK covered all the important points.
 
Roll separate spears back and forth on a flat surface, under your hand.

Preferably, if they're not too fancy, buy brass spears instead - they won't bend, and won't puncture you TOO much. Not like steel spears - those cut you to pieces.

Fireforge also sell styrene plastic weapon sets.
 
Oh yeah, Pewter has a high tin content, so you’re gonna get “tin cry”, that scratching/cracking noise that sounds like you’re destroying the mini. Don’t worry about it.
 
Thanks for weighing in everyone. I found that I can buy a pack of 30 spears that look better for like 8 bucks so I decided to go that route. Now I just need to untwist a single sword.
 
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