"Straightening Axis & Allies pre-painted plastic ships?" Topic

Hi all,

I've been re-organizing my game room, as the clutter was out of control, and one thing I did last night (twice, as it turned out) was consolidate my Axis & Allies pre-painted plastic ships, which are going to be targets for my 1/600 aircraft some day.

While I was putting the ships into their new boxes, I noticed a bunch (nearly all) of the destroyers have some issues with curving, some can't even sit upright. Will the boiling water-ice water technique work on these without wrecking the paint job?

Is there another technique?

They aren't based, for what that's worth. I wasn't planning on basing them but I suppose that's a last resort, if there's a glue strong enough to hold the suckers to the base given the way some of them have warped.

It's mainly just the destroyers, maybe a smaller cruiser. The small sub-chasers are fine, the cruisers and larger are ok, just these 1.5" destroyers.

Thanks,
Chris

Hair dryer?

Hot water/cold water hasn't done anything to the paint jobs I've tried on other bendy plastic pre-painted miniatures. I don't know about the Axis and Alloys miniatures.

Yes, the water trick works. Also, I've had good luck basing them on bases and gluing them down.

Might sound stupid but are they hollow? (bear in mind I don't have any to hand). If they were, I'd straigten them but pack them with something hard (say milliput) to keep them straight.

John T

Thanks for the input guys, I'll try that.

John – the ones that are warping aren't as far as I recall, they're flat bottomed and solid. Some of the bigger ships are hollowed out on the bottom to some extent. That's a good thought though, I'll see if any are when I'm straightening.

I have been a long time collector of the AANM and I also concur with the hot/cold water method.