[Editor's Note: This is part of an ongoing series of articles originally written by the talented Hyun for his late, lamented Wee Toy Soldiers site. Since he's had to step away from the hobby for the foreseeable future, he's kindly given permission for his work to be reprinted in the interest of keeping it available to the community. The series will continue each Tuesday as long as the supply holds out.]

Most miniature gamers and hobbyists have experienced the inevitable laws of gravity when handling metal figures mounted on 25mm round bases, whether a closed round one or a slottabase. If the figure has any tilt, then all too easily the figure topples over, unless the gaming surface is completely flat. In this article, I will show three ways of adding heft (weight) to the bases to make the figures a bit more stable.

First of all, let me weigh the 25mm round bases:

As you can see, the two bases (one closed and one slottabase) combined come to just over 1g; when I weighed them separately, they wouldn’t register on my digital scale, which has 1g-increment sensitivity.

Here we have the material to be used:

From left to right, BB-sized split fishing weights, a US nickel coin, size 8 birdshot, and leftover metal bits from figures

By the way, I won’t be using the leftover metal bits in this article. I wanted to include it in the photo above as many modelers use them, but while they work fine, they are not readily available from retail sources like the other three items are. The availability of the leftover metal bits depend on your previous modeling endeavors, and as such I will skip it.

A lot of people use metal washers. They are handy in that 1) they’re cheap, 2) they’re readily available at your local hardware store, and 3) same washers can be used for both closed and slotta bases. I personally don’t like them for how they add height to the base, but of course, this is a matter of personal preference.

All right. First off, we have the fishing weights. The bag of 60 BBs cost 89 cents, and has enough to equip 12 bases. Not bad. The usage is really simple. Flatten the BBs using a pair of pliers. The following photo shows the BBs in the bag, out of the bag, flattened, and an enlargement in the inset.

You can fit five flattened BBS in a 25mm slotta base, 3 in the larger half and 2 in the other:

… and here’s the completed base, weighed:

Not bad at 4g.

Next up is the #8 birdshot. Birdshot, of course, is what’s used to make shotgun shells. Here in the States, you can buy them just by themselves (some people buy shotgun shells and disassemble them to extract the birdshot inside, but you won’t find me doing that. There’s no way I’m taking a saw to something that’s got gunpowder in it!). Unfortunately, most places seem to sell them in 25lb. bags, and the shipping of course adds a bundle. Fortunately, I was able to buy 3lb. from a fellow hobbyist in the same state who did go ahead and buy the 25lb. bag. Worked out well for both of us.

FYI, #8 birdshot is 2.29mm in diameter, which fits great under the 25mm base without sticking out. Others with experience have reported that #7.5 (2.41mm) fits as well, but I don’t have any personal experience with that.

The “assembly” of the birdshot bases are even simpler than the BB ones. Simply coat the bottom of the slottabase with superglue, and then add a single layer of birdshot to fill it up! Just like that:

5g for the birdshot base. By the way, I figure the 3lb. I bought will give me enough birdshot to weigh about 340 bases.

And finally, the US nickel coin. This is by far the best weight to use on a closed 25mm round base. Forget the BBs, forget the birdshot. Just add superglue, and voilà! No hassle:

… and also has the advantage of being the heaviest at 6g. It’s not entirely apple to apple, as the above two are slottabases. But for closed 25mm round bases, nothing beats a nickel. I’m sure you can find a coin of suitable diameter and thickness in your corner of the world to work just as well.

Here you have the three bases side by side, to show that all the weights added sit flush clear against the bottom of the bases (when those bases are right-side up):

Hope you found this little article useful!

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