Hi all,
I've done it before, and it's given me some grief.
The operation, I mean.  

So I need a spot of advice.

What's the best way to remove bases off 6mm scale Space Marines - especially the Epic Space Marine period ones which have such flimsy legs? I need to do a handful for a sort-of-but-not-quite-a-diorama.
Thanks.

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Back from oblivion (again)?

I use a really sharp knife... and several spare Marines as several will lose feet.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Hi Van, yes the knife option is the best. But if you need the marines I have a bunch that I can send to you if you want.

How marines do you need?

cheers
Bans

PS: Nice to read you again!!!  

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Riau!!!!! O_o!
http://elbansblog.blogspot.com/

Should be a pretty simple operation. Take a pair of sharp neat clipper like the yellow GW ones. With the flat side of the clippers clip off the front edge of the base a fraction out from the toes so as not to damage them, do the same on the rear and then on each side - you should now be left with marine standing on a rectangle. Flip him on his side and carefully try to clip off the rectangle half way through it's width, this is the most risky and easy to go wrong and damage the marine cut so be careful with this one, if it starts to go wrong skip it. Finally then whittle and scrape away with a knife any remaining plastic until you're all done.

You might damage the odd one or two, but once you get into it that should be very rare. I've done it on a load of plastic marines myself; at one point I decided I didn't like the fact that even tiny sand glued to the base had a tendency to cover a marine's feet and that for my marine army I was going to paint marine and base separately and then glue them ontop with tiny blobs of epoxy on each foot (the other advantage was that I could have marines on top of piles of rock or the first floor of a small piece of ruins on the base). I still might one day. Plastics are easy though - removing the bases from fragile metal or metal figures without damaging them is the more tricky one.

E&C - oh dear, I don't have the stomach for this!
Bans - yes, I'm more or less back. Thanks for the offer - it's actually assault marines (!) I'll be operating on; I mentioned the old SM ones as they are the most delicate - and the worst case.
GlynG - sounds good. To be honest I don't need too many debased ( ) marines - 5 or 6, I dare say. But I cannot afford too many failures, and I can't hide missing feet as they will be based on a machine surface. No rubble there.
Thanks guys.

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Back from oblivion (again)?

Another vote for a careful slice with a sharp knife here. I did this for my assault marines and a few of their feet became rather *thin* My advice would be to try to cut into the base a bit rather than exactly on the join, you can always trim the excess from the feet afterwards.

Glyn's method sounds very effective, might give that a go myself.

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Yes, sharp knife, clippers, a little sanding ...  Cut around the feet and then gently sand them to the thickness desired ...  

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Agreed. If you are worried about the feet losing material, cut down into the base and trim after.

On a side note, if you're doing chaos conversions, it is convenient to trim the excess from the base into hooves...

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Neal