The Importance of Sprue Sanitation and the Embarrassing Endeavour into House Cleaning

[wittdooley]

So this past weekend, we had some really, really nice, unseasonable weather in Ohio. It was almost 60 degrees on Sunday, so the wife thought that meant it would be a great time to clean the garage. I knew I had a lot of crap out there, but I thought it was mostly junk. Here's the recounting of my embarassing (but fruitful) cleaning session, and a little reminder of why it's always important to clean your sprues.

The Importance of Sprue Sanitation and the Embarrassing Endeavour into House Cleaning (http://queencityguard.com/index.php/2012/01/10/the-importance-of-sprue-sanitation-and-the-embarrassing-endeavour-into-house-cleaning/)

Please tell me I'm not the only person to clean, have a ton of angst about throwing sprues away, and finding an embarassing abundance of minis I didn't know I had.

[Morgan Darkstar]

But.....but all those bits man! How could you......

[DrLove42]

Eeeeesh. thanks for that. i already have a little heart tremor when i throw a sprue out cos my ocd tells me i forgot simething. now its going to be even worse

[wittdooley]

But.....but all those bits man! How could you......

I've already received 3 threatening texts from friends....

@Doc--Dude, I had the heart palpatations each time I put one in the "throw away" stack. Then they often got moved back into the keep stack, then eventually I broke down, clipped everything I knew I'd need ONLY for those models, and tossed the rest. Then this morning on the way to work I realized there were probably 1 or 2 demon hammers in there, and I immediately regretted tossing them.

[Sister Rosette Soulknyt]

why not just remove everything from the sprue, clip it off and drop it into a bitz box/tub/shoe box?
Over the years of playing and painting my bitz box (big plastic sealable tub) is over half full of pieces from all 40k armies and then some.

[Mr.Pickelz]

I'm with the Sister on this, why not just clip all your unused stuff off into a tub or something, and then toss the sprue frame.

[wittdooley]

I must not have intimated it well in the article: I used to do this upon completion of the actual models on the sprue. Then i'd sort them into labeled drawers in a much larger tool sorting container unit. However, I've failed to do this lately, and the sprues got backed up.

As such, my lovely wife wanted them gone. She said, "you don't have to get rid of all of it if you need it," but anyone with a spouse knows thats an equivalent statment to, "you dont need to get me anything for Valentines Day." Instead of clipping stuff, sorting it, and taking a ton more time, I made the decision to try and simply purge it so that it could go out with the trash this morning.

Ugh, I threw away a command sprue banner. And I know there are at least 2 daemon hammers in there.

Presently going through some serious sprue withdrawal.

EDIT: I realized I didn't quite answer the "clip it all into a tub" question. I couldn't do that. My anal retentiveness would drive me insane doing that. I'd rather thrown them all away then have them sit, mixed, in one thing.

[Grailkeeper]

Those bits man, ... those bits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g

[Houghten]

*sob* What was wrong with Freecycle?

[wittdooley]

What is Freecycle?

[Defenestratus]

The fact that you can have serious conversations with your wife about the competitive nature of bitz makes me either insanely jealous or scared for you.

This is how I manage my bitz/sprues. There's at least 30 dire avengers in this damn box that I can't be bothered to assemble. I've got two more in the closet - just waiting to be plucked of bitz. Thinking I might have to start up an ebay store :P


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-T_y6YJkUf7Y/Twy6taRGEUI/AAAAAAAASfw/b8xUtXXF32Q/s800/IMG_20120110_172402.jpg

[Wildeybeast]

What is Freecycle?

It's a UK thing. Like Ebay, but rather than people paying you for your crap and you posting it to them, you give away your crap for free and they come and pick it up from your house. Nice for getting rid of larger items or stuff you need shot of quickly as people will often be round the following day to grab it. I'm amazed you didn't ebay some of that stuff, at least the ones with whole models. Put it up cheaply enough and people will buy it. I solved the problems of all my sprue piles by summoning the mental strength to overcome my AR tendancies and clip everything into one big bitz box for 40k and one for fantasy. It was actually quite liberating when I managed it, cleared out an entire wardrobe and rummaging through there for stuff is quite fun. I'd recommend giving it a go, depending on the severity of your AR.

[eldargal]

Boo, I want a wife to argue about bitz with.:rolleyes: I've never in sixteen years thrown out a single bit.

[Cherub]

Boo, I want a wife to argue about bitz with.:rolleyes: I've never in sixteen years thrown out a single bit.

I choked a little laughing when I read that.

[Dalleron]

I had a similiar issue with bits.

I was going through my ravenwing bits, from 3 boxes worth, along with other stuff. I kept all the body pieces and what not, but as there are so many bits in a ravenwing box, I got through 3 sprues and figured I couldn't be bothered with the rest. Now they're gone. Everyone has a line, and I found mine, and couldn't cross it.

[Deadlift]

I too seem to have the inabilty to clip off spares and throw out sprues, they can be found under the bed, in the attic, behind the dining room door, in my office at work, on my shelves by my side of the bed, next to my iMac, in the drawers next to the mrs's fine china. They are everywhere and anyone who has bought an Ogre kingdoms battalion will know just how these bits of plastic sprue seem to literally breed if not watched closely.

I have bitz for armies I don't even play because I grab what my friends throw out :). One day I will have a seriously cool looking Ork armie comprised of all this looted stuff.

[doom-kitten]

I actually have a similiar story,after cleaning my painting station about two years ago I found over half of my lizardmen army unassembled and still on sprues or in their original blister boxes. In total I found:

1 Lizardman battalion (removed from box but still on sprues)
1 Carnosaur
3 Kroxigors
24 Skinks
8 Saurus Cavalry
and a Salamander

Very weird that all that would go unnoticed and would like to remember what caused me to forget it all.

[Wolfshade]

I've never had anything that bad, although I did find a crate full of empty sprues which I never quite got around to throwing away and has moved house with me three times. I suppose I should really dispose of them... but I might need some for rubble, or debris, or for that mega piece of terrain I will never make :rolleyes:

[Psychosplodge]

Those bits man, ... those bits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g


I think this about sums it up...

[Defenestratus]

for those leftover sprues - you can go get an el-cheapo meat grinder at wally world and feed the empty sprue into it. What comes out makes good flock for road terrain pieces when laid on top of PVA.

[Wolfshade]

for those leftover sprues - you can go get an el-cheapo meat grinder at wally world and feed the empty sprue into it. What comes out makes good flock for road terrain pieces when laid on top of PVA.

I like it, might need to invest in a blend tec blender :D

[Defenestratus]

I like it, might need to invest in a blend tec blender :D

You jest - but go with the manual grinders. You can more closely control the size of the "grain" coming out of the business end. If you stick the pieces in a blendtech- you might turn it to dust.

[Wolfshade]

I hadn't considered that but it makes sense. I suppose also if you get one with interchangable discs you can change the granularity

[chromedog]

If you had sprues getting backed up, you had too much crap anyway.

I often go through my stuff and just bin sprues and bits I don't need (Hell, I also melt down those old, long OOP metals that I have that no-one wants anyway and I'm never going to use - but these become ingots and I do reuse them).

Life is too short for regrets. Live, move on. If you spend too long regretting the what-might-have-beens, you might miss something else more important.

[Emerald Rose Widow]

Usually what I do is to clip the sprues until they are empty and keep different boxes of bits no longer on the sprue for each army, which leaves me with a lot of spare parts for conversions. It has worked out for me really well and gives me a lot of cool ideas sometimes. As for the sprues themselves (my brother calls them nets, hehe) I snip them into their straight bits for use in making crystals and other modifications.

Hell for christmas I took cardboard, rocks, bits of sprues, and made a little model for my dad of a telecaster on a pile of rocks with a sign on the front saying "bob's rock shop" (my dads name is robert) all from extra bits i have laying around. I am almost done with this project and need to send it to him soon, i really hope he likes it.

so you never know what you could use those extra bits for, hell the sprues I use to make faux crystals on my various models, which are geologically themed.

[Adra]

One persons gold is another persons lead. Knowing this i cant really understand why anyone would throw away any bits left on an old sprue. If you want to throw them out take them down your local GW or hobby shop and give them away to the kids. My local GW often has guys coming down with massive bits boxes and we all have a look through. One saturday and its all gone to good homes. Dont just throw them away.

[Col.Gravis]

Amen to that, throwing bits away is just pain wasteful, you might not use em, but somebody will - and hell if your not the giving sort some of the bits stores will buy them off you.

[Bigred]

I have a friend who went to the design studio and said they have one of the old bolt down hand crank meat grinders like this one in there:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEM-32-Heavily-Tinned-Bolt-Down-Meat-Grinder-Great-Deer-Turkey-Pork-NEW-/300627683308?pt=Small_Kitchen_Appliances_US&hash=item45fece67ec

Apparently the internal gears crush and pulverize the sprue as opposed to cutting it like modern food processors do, so you get better "debris" out of it. That is apparently how they make all that urban debris they have all over their fancy terrain pieces.

[Aldramelech]

I still have about 50 or so sprues from the plastic dwarfs from the ones before they sell now, might be useful one day........

[wittdooley]

Amen to that, throwing bits away is just pain wasteful, you might not use em, but somebody will - and hell if your not the giving sort some of the bits stores will buy them off you.

I thought about that latter part of that after the garbage man had come. I did get a healthy amount of action from the wife after I finished cleaning, however, and for multiple days in a row.

Conclusion: well worth it :D

[Psychosplodge]

I thought about that latter part of that after the garbage man had come. I did get a healthy amount of action from the wife after I finished cleaning, however, and for multiple days in a row.

Conclusion: well worth it :D
Priorities....

[Aldramelech]

I thought about that latter part of that after the garbage man had come. I did get a healthy amount of action from the wife after I finished cleaning, however, and for multiple days in a row.

Conclusion: well worth it :D

Too much information

[Denzark]

Not enough information - photos or it never happened...

[Charistoph]

I thought about that latter part of that after the garbage man had come. I did get a healthy amount of action from the wife after I finished cleaning, however, and for multiple days in a row.

Conclusion: well worth it :D

Wise Man Say, "Happy wife worth all gold (and bits) in world."