Yep as the title suggests this post is about the silliness that is the Black Plastic Fight Stand fiasco!
As anyone that reads my blog posts on a regular basis will know I have a few spaceships in my collection, some would say too many.
I have often said you can’t have too many spaceships.
This does raise an issue though that has been with us for a while now ( well at the very least been with me ) the issue is a shortage of those little black plastic hex flight stands, I have about twenty left that I can use to mount my ships on, but the problem is trying to get more.
There are none!!!!
I, like I guess many other people, have spent a while on the internet trying to source these little pieces of useful plastic to no avail 😢
You can’t find them anywhere.
Apparently the stockists in this country all get their flight stands form one supplier and that supplier has been having some trouble with producing these stands, I think they must have sat on the mould and broke it 😁
Seriously what is the problem, make another mould!!!!
Sorry but I don’t get it, it seems completely silly to me, people buy these flight stands, companies that sell spaceships buy these flight stands, it’s not as if they don’t sell, I have brought a ridiculous number over the years and would still keep buying them if I could get them, I have another thirty spaceships sitting here with only the twenty stands I mentioned before.
I am also printing more spaceships as I type this…
Ok there are a few other manufacturers that make their own, see-through plastic, square bases etc. etc. or even some weird and wonderful ones that someone thought would make a good flight stands ( what drugs are they taking!! ) but none of them really do it for me.
I do have a few of the old Spartan clear plastic square fight stands which were with some Fire Storm Armada ships that I got hold of and as these are some chunky ships the stands work ok, although I have been swapping them out as they don’t match the flight stands on all my other fleets.
I have also been looking around on the 3D STL sites seeing what they have around and seeing if my printer could produce a basic flight stand that I could use, but so far I haven’t found anything that I like or my printer can print.
I have even put a few bits together on a 3D design program and will see what they look like when printed, the first couple of attempts failed badly, not sure why but they looked really bad.
I know that I add a square base to the bottom of my stands as I think it makes it easier to work out fire arcs and it also makes them sturdier, but I still use the plastic hex stand on top so I need loads, but I hear you say “then why bother with the hex stands at all” well I am not sure, I guess it is because most of my fleets already have them and I can’t be bothered with changing all those stands to something else.
Maybe the company is not bothering to make them because they think that they are old and there are plenty of other stands out there for spaceships, well maybe they are right.
Am I being silly? should I just give up with these old black plastic flight stands? should I just bite the bullet and go online and buy any of the strange flight stands and stop my whingeing?
No, I don’t think so, most are a little expensive for me ( I am a cheap skate!! ) and I really don’t like most of them.
I think that companies are selling spaceships with flight stands although most of these seem to be metal cast ones, but again I don’t really like these either.
So I say again please make a new mould and get producing these flight stands, I at least want to buy some!
Ok I will shut up now…
Hi Mac!
Dont get me started on this … ALL my starship miniatures are based on these & with none being available I’ve been forced to cannibalize other miniatures to get bases for newer ones – it’s a mess!
If the supplier doesn’t pull their pinkie out, fix the issue, and get back to production of what is an absolute basic staple of many space games, I face the prospect of having to re-base my entire collection – I’m definitely not a happy bunny at this idea
AND ivd been put off ordering more ship miniatures – at least 60 & that’s before a full new fleet for my setting – I reckon I’ll need 150+ bases before the New Year & it’s been something like 2 years already … grrr!
Vic
Hi Vic,
There is no way I will be re-basing all my ships!!
I know I am being lazy but I like the little hex stands and as I am likely to print many new ships I am going to need lots of them.
Mac <--- Mr unhappy
I drill a hole in my star ship miniatures that is deep enough so that the stands that came with them comfortably fit, even when moved (mostly). They came with my Babylon 5 miniatures so I don’t know who makes them.
Looks like RavenStar Studios uses them for some of their ships. Might ask if they still have them and would be willing to do a trade or something. That said, none of the old bases I got from them are in that style.
B-3 Designs also uses them
Might go through the list of manufactures listed at Star Ship Combat News site and see if any of them use this type of stand and where they get it.
Unfortunately, it looks like Agents of Gaming doesn’t use them either
Other sources of stands are:
* Litko
* Etsy (bit hit or miss)
I would have included links, but my message got marked as spam.
Hi James,
I have seen a few companies use them, but I wonder if they are running out, I guess they don’t have an unlimited supply.
I have a few odd bases from different manufacturers, some are ok and are probably just as good, but my OCD will not cope with different bases on my fleets, or even mixed bases in a fleet.
I have a very large Aquan fleet ( Firestorm Armada ) and they all have the clear square plastic flight stands, basically the same as Litko ones, but they look odd next to my other stands.
Some of the bases on my Reformer ships are metal ones and although they are ok I will change them one day if I can ever get more of the plastic hex ones.
Mac
It’s a nightmare that looks like it’s never going to end . It must now have reached two years and still no one has any of these flight stands and the longer it goes on the more pitiful those early reason’s for not being able to get hold of them sounds. If it were a broken mould I’m sure it could have been replaced in the intervening time I’m wondering if the UK supplier has been a casualty of Brexit and gone under but even this doesn’t explain why nobody has stepped in to fill a hole in the market there is money to be made here so god alone knows what is really going on.
Hi Karl,
It does seem really crazy that there is still an issue with these bases, I am down to my last one or two and I am now having to seriously look at other flying bases for my spaceships.
Mac
part of this is like lou zocchi said a long time ago the manufacture needed more money and would say” mold fracture – need to buy a 10,000 dollar new one ”
and if you told them you wanted the old parts they would destroy it. so i would tell you a good idea would be to buy a alumilite set with rubber and resin – make a copy of your master and order acrylic plastic rod and make as many as your resin holds out – the resin in this set equals a full quart part a and b. you might get 100 copies — that is a lot of work but it will be all yours. the cost of the kit was around 40 to 60 dollars.
I have been looking at all sorts of alternatives for these bases, a lot of places now do flat plastic hex bases with a pin to mount your flyer / spaceship on, I guess that one day I will check them out.
I know that you can still get some of the original hex bases but the price has gone a bit silly with some suppliers, I am guessing that’s because they are harder to get.
I still can’t get my head around the supposed cost of the mould for these, I am guessing they are injection moulded similar to plastic sprues for figures (I may be wrong)
We had a mould for a plastic figure sprue produced a while back and I know that didn’t cost anywhere near the costs that are quoted for the fight stand mould.
It certainly was a few hundred, but with the 5,000 plus copies of the sprue plus the packaging it still wasn’t anywhere near the cost of the one mould for these flight stands.
If memory serves me right, we have done more than one plastic figure and none of them have been that expensive.
I am sure someone will point out my error and explain that it is more complicated or just a different process to produce a very simple designed two-part flight stand than it is to produce a really detailed multi part figure sprue.
As someone shared the blog on the Full Thrust Facebook group, I figured I would chime in here.
Idon’t know how useful it will be to you, but as someone who also uses A LOT of flight stands, and during the period where even places like Ground Zero Games couldn’t get any spare, I created my own 3D-printable versions the files for which I then have distribed for free at Wargames Vault (https://www.wargamevault.com/product/437945/Hex-Flight-Stand-Set-for-3D-Printing) and more recently also on MyMiniFactory (https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-hex-flight-stand-set-326969).
The base stand (35mm tall) is designed to match the measurements of the flight stands (minus the little nub at the top, which I found was never useful), plys there’s a few more heights and even a smaller, rectangular base suited for smaller ships.
The regular sized-stands also have a 1mm tube down the middle, so (though I haven’t had cause to test it myself yet), in case of breakage, you could theorhetically use a piece thin wire or bit of paperclip to pin them.
This was, I’m afraid, the best I could personally do for the hobby overall, but I hope it is of help to some of you, at least.
Hi,
Thanks for the links, I will check out the files and see if my old printer can cope with them, even if I can only manage to print out the base itself that would be great.
And I like the look of the smaller oblong stands, they could work for some of my smaller ships or possibly even my fighters.
As I have said I know some companies are now selling the normal black plastic hex fight stands, but most are being sold at slightly silly prices.
And considering I have at least another 80+ ships that still need stands and I am still printing more as I am designing them, I won’t be buying any.
So again thank you for the link to your stands, much appreciated.
Mac
Oh and I love the look of some of the files on the link!! really nice models there.