Headache cure

I haven’t really done anything worth showing you this week.  My wife and I had a very stressful and busy week.  Teachers in BC voted to go on full strike on Tuesday night.  My wife and I are moving schools next year.  That meant that we had two days to finish packing up two classrooms and moving it all out of the school (Friday was our rotating strike day).  Let me tell you that almost everything in a modern elementary classroom is owned by the teacher.  It was an adventure and now I have a shed two thirds full of boxes full of school stuff.

Anyway, this is a hobby blog.  I thought I’d go through how I solved one of the biggest headaches faced by all PoM players: how to keep your wracks together.  For those that aren’t aware, wracks come in four pieces.  The main wrack, the poor sod who hangs on it, and the  two censors that hang from the wrack.  The problem arises from the censors.  They have a little “c” shaped piece of chain at the end that you are expected to attach to the larger ring at the end of the wrack.  Take it from me folks, it ain’t gonna happen.  I brought all of my Google-fu to bear on the problem and found only failed solutions.  Green stuff, extra glue all failed.  So, I did something radical.  I thought for myself.  Here is what I came up with.

 

 

 

Step 1:  I went to Wal-Mart and browsed the jewelry making section.  Michael’s has an extensive jewelry making section as well.  I picked up a set of chain and some jump rings.  Total cost was in the neighbourhood of $5.  I would recommend taking your censor with you to eyeball the size of your chain with your model so your finished product isn’t too weird looking.

 

 

Step 2:  Remove the chain from the censor.  I cut mine off with my sprue cutters.  You will have to use a file and your knife to clean out the portion of the chain that goes through the ring on the censor.  You need this open so you can thread it through the jump ring.  Be careful not to go all the way through the ring or your life will get hard.

Step 3:  Cut a piece of chain that is about the same length as what you removed, remembering to take into account the larger ring size of the jump rings.

Step 4:  Take a jump ring and thread it through the censor and one end of the chain.  I used a pair of needle nosed pliers to close the ring.  If you have strong yet supple hands, maybe you could use those.  Next is to take the other end and do the same thing to large ring on the end of the wrack.  I found doing it with the censor on the end was easier as the weight of the censor pulled down and kept things in place while I closed the jump ring.

Step 5:  Strap on a heathen and paint it for the glory of the creator of man!