Forged in Battle: A Cautionary Tale

This weekend I prepared a pack of 15 mm Illyrian cavalry and much to my dismay I found:

• Lots of thin flash on the riders, especially round the javelin.
• Some very awkward mould lines.
• One miscast and broken javelin.
• All the riders needed significant trimming to sit well in the saddle.
• There was always some flash between the horses front and rear legs.
• Most horses had excess metal, from a torn mould, on the inside of the left rear leg.
• All the horses weren't stable, or upright, on their bases and had to be bent straight.  This was tough as the metal is not that soft.
• All horses had sharp edges to their tails that needed rounding to ensure paint adhesion.
• One horse with its rear legs bent inwards and fused together.
• Two other horses had their front legs crossed and bent at funny angles.
• One of the latter lost its tail during clean up.

After lots of cutting, scraping and filing, I still had 1 of 13 riders and 3 of 12 horses to repair. I ended up:

• Making a new javelin (from 1 mm brass rod), cutting away the old and carving a slot in the residual hand before supergluing it in place.
• "Recreating" the gap between the fused rear legs of one horse.  Much "sawing" was involved and a few broken blades. I was then able to bend the legs back to something like straight.
• Finding a new horse tail (from the spares box); cutting it off the donor model; drilling both the new tail and horse's rear to take a small pin of brass rod; before finally gluing everything in place.
• For two horses: cutting one, crossed and bent, leg off the base before bending them straight.
• Finally, using green stuff to fill the gaps around the transplanted tail and creating some additional groundwork between the base and the straightened legs which were no longer in contat with the base.

Today they will be mounted on painting bases and primed.  And they say modern miniatures are better ...