"How many unusable grey plastic sprues do you have?" Topic

What I'm talking about is sprues which will not make a figure. What most of us are missing is bodies. I have sprues with shields, weapons, heads but no bodies to put them on. My count: Gripping Beast 15, Conquest 13, Fireforge 12, and Wargames Factory 16. A total of 57. I like to mix parts across companies when I build, but this is what I have left.

When the plastic craze started, the vocal majority wanted the ability to make the poses THEY wanted. In order to cater to that demand, the companies provided the alternate arms, equipment, heads, etc. Shortly after these were made available, we started seeing people complaining that it took so long to assemble the figures! Guess you can't please everyone!

Don't look at it as too many leftover parts (you did get the ability to make the stated quantity of figs from each box?), but if you didn't have all those extra bits, you may not have been able to make all the poses you would have liked.

Instead, maybe a better approach might be to offer swaps for pieces others may need more of in exchange for those you might need. I have known guys buy an additional box just to get a pair of arms or a particular head just to finish a unit out. There very well could be many extra bodies available for sale or trade from such folks. Then those extra "bits" you have just may be that special stash!

In any case, as an ex- metal maker, I am glad to see the proliferation of plastics these days! Now if only some 10mm companies switched to plastic for the figures…../>).

Best
Tom

not as many as you but still lots. i keep making the pledge to throw them out but am always gripped by the fear that maybe one day i'll need that drum and drummers arm from the WF WSS infantry sprue.

over the weekend i tried some mash-ups. i took the mirlition head from the Perry Hussars put it on the WF WSS cavaly body (bit of filing required) and added the Perry legs. I'm now trying to convince myself they look like Revolutionary Chasseurs a Cheval.

Why would you leave the parts on the sprues when it makes them so much bulkier to store? Clip them and stow them in craft store organizers or whatever you use for bits box stuff. The sprues themselves are useful as rubble and pipes and rebar when cut up and distressed properly.

Your sprues aren't "unusable", they are used up.

People are always looking for extra "bits" (some online traders even specialize in selling single parts), so you could just offer them on a forum.

You might take them to your local gaming venue, if you have one, and do some trading for parts you want. Or just give them away. At least that way they wouldn't be taking up space.

I have a lot of GW sprues for Lizardmen, Chaos Space Marines, Eldar, and others. I just cannot just toss them but had little success selling them or trading. I may take them with me to Historicon and offer them for a quarter or free just to be rid of them. At one time I was all about wanting to do conversions and such but I want to spend my hobby time painting figures and running games. There are only so many hours in the day.

I have a huge cardboard box full of sprues. I mean to remove all the bits and sort them, but … you know … inertia …

Leaving them on the sprue may make them bulkier to store but it also can help you find things more easily. Many sprues are stamped with unit X, command this/that, etc. That's one reason some folks leave their bits on the sprue.

If that is how you are defining it then probably, literally, thousands.

I clipped all the pieces off when I did 28s, and stored them. Never knew when I would need a piece…

When I stopped doing 28s, I recycled everything.

So I have ZERO unusable plastic sprues. :)

I do also remove the bits from sprues to save space, though I must admit that keeping them on the sprues might make it easier to find the correct bits later on.

If you feel that you do not have future conversion use for the bits in question, then you could always use them to decorate some scenery pieces for camps, baggage trains and villages (armourer's store). Or glue them to spare bases to make battlefield debris markers for various uses.

Not sure I understand this as a problem. A pile of spare heads on a pile of broken weapons looks pretty good on a battlefield!

I always keep them on the sprue. I have a fair idea of what I have in bits, and it makes it much easier to find.