Securing Flight Stands

I’ve always found those clear plastic stands which hold up flyers in Warhammer 40k a touch on the precarious side, particularly where they bond to the base. Plastic glue doesn’t work so well with them, and super glue has a way of breaking off when bonding to paint. Pinning is another option which adds a little more stability. This blog, however, is about supporting the base of the flight stand by wedging it between your basing materials while making it look like part of the base.

Two layers of cork torn from flooring tiles (I use something like these) give you the height you need. Tear four jagged pieces from the edge of one of your cork tiles, keeping at least one straight edge. Dry fit the flight stand on the base as a guide and use super glue to stick the cork sections to the base, one in each corner of the flight stand. Make sure the fit is tight.

Repeat the process with a second layer of smaller cork pieces, glued atop the first layer. Depending on the thickness of the cork, you should now have 6-10mm of height around your flight stand. Remove the flight stand itself, leaving the glued cork pieces in place. This should leave you a cross-shaped hole between your cork pieces.

Cover the base, apart from the cross space with PVA glue and then sprinkle coarse sand all over. Give it a shake to remove the excess, and brush away any sand that found its way into the cross-shaped hole. You’ll want to keep that clear so the flight stand has a flat surface to bond against when gluing later.

You’re now ready to paint. For this example, I primed with GW Corax White, then base coated with Vallejo Earth. I washed it all over with GW Agrax Earthshade before drybrushing with GW Screaming Skull. The rocks were picked out with Vallejo Deck Tan, then washed with GW Agrax Earthshade and drybrushed with GW Screaming Skull at the same time as the rest of the base.

Once painted, glue the flight stand in place using super glue. There’s the added benefit that if the glue causes any frosting when drying, the cork surrounding it should hide it.

Here’s how it turned out. The cork melds with the rest of the basing and the flight stand is not breaking off in a hurry.

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