Hello lads.

Whats the best way to construct bolt heads for 1/35 scale armour.
I do not have a punch and die set and am frustrated with not being able to add these features to some of my projects.

Any help in this area would be much appreciated.

Cheers

The easiest way is to purchase hex rod from Plastruct (http://www.plastruct.com/). They come in various diameters and you just slice it to the thickness desired and glue them to the model surface with ordinary model glue. A set of hex rods runs about $2-3 and will last a long time.

Some of the newer Eduard PE sets include a little hex pattern on the edge of the fret. These are designed so that you can heat the end of a sprue and push it through the stencil. A hex shaped nut will be formed. This is a bit of a pain to do.

ExtraTech makes PE bolt heads: http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=ETV35010

Another method is to buy Grandt Line (http://www.grandtline.com/) nuts and bolts.

Also Verlinden and Legends do resin bolt heads. http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=VE0075

Some newer kits like the Academy M3 and M3A1 Stuarts come with bolt heads molded on the sprue. All you do is shave them off and glue them to the surface.

Another thought:
If you have any old kits that you use to practice techniques, painting, weathering, zimmerit, etc. look those over. I have shaved bolts off of a lot of my "hanger queens" to add detail to a current project.

Shaun

Rob plastrut in Oz is far more expensive then in the states. What may cost you $2 to buy will cost $6 to $8 here. Take pkts of evergreen extrusion. about $3 retail in the States and $7 to $8 a pkt here!

However the point is this is still the cheapest and best way to make your own bolt heads. I usually buy my plastic supplies in bulk from the States and Hex rod is in my next order.

cheers
Cliff

You should just let one of us know what diameter hex rod you need. As long as you don't mind the length being cut in half to fit into a normal envelope, several sets of hex rod can be mailed to Austrailia for under a dollar.