Taking The Whip Into the Shop For Some Work, or, Middle Eastern Re-Armament

        The Housemartin is a fearless buyer of things via the internet and his eagle-eye had spotted many a deal over the years (especially painted figures, he likes painting no more than I). On occasion this can backfire as things are mislabeled or dishonestly presented, but on the whole he has done very well. The biggest risk is when the minis are turned over to the attentions of the USPS or UPS for shipping; any sort of misadventure can befall even the most carefully packaged goods. Recently he came to me with an Assyrian heavy chariot that was much worse the wear from its travels to see if there was something that I could do to bring it back into service. And so, I says to the lad, we'll take a look.

 

honestly, I've seen worse

 

 

the axles had broken off right at the wheel-hub

 

after I had hacked away the blobs of super-glue I drilled out the axle-stub 

so I could insert a bit of steel wire

 

then I started drilling out the wheel-hub to be ready for its new steel axle

 

there had been some ham-handed use of super glue in the past

 

eventually I had both wheels ready to go

 

 

then I stuck a bit of mild steel wire into the axle stub

 

this was left long to ease handling,

 it will be cut down to about 1/8th inch later

 

 

once the glue had set I fixed the other axle 

 

 

then I noticed something!

 

wheels ready for installation

 

and there you are, I took care to be sure that the wheels were straight

 

then I poked around in the spares bin looking for an arm with a round shield and an arm for the driver 

I managed to get a suitable arm for the driver but had to take liberties with the #2 man, 

he got a spear instead of a shield, the long sleeves were filed back to match the short sleeves of the rest of the crew

 

 

a spot of super-glue and the re-armament program was complete

 

then it was back to bases and I glued the chariot back on its base

painting will begin once the superglue is dry

 

once I had started painting I realized that I should have 

painted the arms BEFORE attaching them to the crew

 

but a little patience and it all turned out OK

 

        Pretty straightforward actually. The hardest bit was finding arms that went with the figures, modern minis have gotten so big that most of my spare arms looked ludicrous when I tried them.