"Bracing advice needed" Topic

A friend sent me a 12" model of Kolchak, the Night Stalker.
It's a wonderful resin "statue" of Himself wielding a tiny crucifix to ward off … well, you know.
(Yes, I am FINALY getting around to this.)

My problem is that it comes with both a base and a perpindicular wall, as well as the many parts.
The wall and the base are simply butt-joined, with few keys.
I fear for the stability of this, as both are approximately 12" square, half inch thick plaques.

I will be going with the standard "drill and pin" for figure assembly, using Gorilla Super Glue.

How can I brace this, assembled to the base and wall, so that I can ship it securely, and it will not fall apart?
I am thinking of using 90 degree metal bracesm but would have to scoop out a recess in the plaques.
I can't go without the wall, sinct his hand is part of the wall plaque.

Does anyone have any better ideas?
Or, maybe links to sites that deal with this rotinely?

Yes, I did use the shotgun-crossposting method.
And if I could have thought of any more that would help, I would have used them too!

How about routing grooves in a pair small of triangular-shaped pieces of wood for the base and wall and then screwing a couple of stringers to attach them once on the piece?

John, I assume you are going to drill the wall and base and insert pins for stability. For shipping I would look into packing the model in foam, cut out to hold it, and then with more foam packed tightly around the figure.

I've put together Verlinden (120 & 200mm) resin figures before – I used the drill and pin method for assembly. Works the best as the resin is easily drilled. I would put a small dot of paint on one piece and then align it onto the other piece. This would give fairly close position for the holes to match. Depending on how large the pieces were I'd sue either pins or brass rod. Hope this helps. Dean

P.S. I loved the original Kolchak series.

Bracing advice:
Keep your back straight you nerve steady and look the worl in the eye.

Cool, I have that kit. I bought it at least a decade ago. Still sitting unassembled and unpainted on my shelf.

From my dry-fitting, I think drilling, pinning, and epoxying everything, plus careful packing, whoulc do fine without additional bracing.

SLAP! Hold yourself together, man! We've got to face this head on, or we're done for! Get back to your post! Steel up your… what? Oh. Oh, advice *about* bracing. Yes, that is different.
*Ahem*
Well, steady on, then. And, uhm, a cold compress should clear that redness up in a jiffy.

Loved that show as a kid.

Build a 'backing' base and wall that the model one can fit into. The backing structure can be made stronger, and also acts as a display base….

A mixed media dinosaur sculpture (resin and metal, w/expanding foam inside to save weight) a friend did for a client a few years ago had a similar backdrop, although hers had a brief corner wraparound, if that's relevant.

She was worried about the backdrop surviving transit (it was being shipped cross-country, Ohio to Washington), so for extra security/peace of mind, she and I came up with the idea of taking "pinning" one step further:

She used brass rod as sort of de facto dowels, to pin the far ends of the wide flat rear wall, and a third in the center (the entire backdrop was something like 18" or so across), and then, in the gaps between the pinnings, used a cutoff wheel to cut a slot up into the backdrop a couple inches deep, and then cut matching slits all the way through the base, where they'd match up.

She then slid two matching metal brackets (two matched rectangles of mild steel I'd cut to her specs, then bent to 90 degrees in a vise) through the slots in the base, traced their outline on the bottom of the (resin) base, and ground/sanded out the necessary material for the bottom of the brackets to sit flush.

Thin coat of industrial adhesive (I'd've just used 5 minute 2-part epoxy, myself, but she had the good stuff on-hand, so who was I to argue?) later, and the brackets were well set into place and the backdrop was very secure.

Honestly, I think the pinning aspect was superfluous, in retrospect, and just created extra work- a single bracket, 2 1/2x as wide, would've been a lot easier, and probably stronger, although I suppose the depth the metal "dowels" ran upwards can't really be discounted, either.

But, anyway, yeah- just an idea. It's a whole lot less work and labour than it sounds like being written out like this, and the end result was exceptionally strong, so it's something to consider?

- Monk