I don't know of any round metal bases with a depression, which is why a bag of these arrived at my house earlier this month.
They are readily available on eBay. If you are searching for them, they are called Pendant Tray Bases, 25mm. I did some searching and scored a pack of 30 for $6 shipped! They have a "lace" pattern inside and on the back.
Apparently they are made to have a jewel or some sort of decorative glass bit put into them. They are about 27mm across, with an interior exactly 25mm.
With a good pair of snips, a rough file and a finishing file, it's not much work at all to remove the tabs. What you're left with is a 27mm base that is 2mm high, one mm shorter than a standard slotta-base (which coincidentally will fit right into the middle depression).
You could also glue a figure to the flat "bottom" side. I might do this and use the lace pattern as the basing for some figures. However, where these will really shine is for minis with cast-on bases.
It hides most of the figure on the left, a Shadowrun Native American. It is exactly flush with the base of the figure on the right. On a whim, I tossed one into paint stripper and it came out two days later looking almost exactly the same. Apparently the bronze coat over the silver colored metal is bonded very well.
To sum up, this is a base with some real advantages. We're always on the hunt for fun, cheap and/or nifty bases for 28mm models. It's got more basing room (25mm) in the interior than both the top of a 25mm slotted base or the inside of a 30mm Privateer Press style base (both have 23mm of basing areas). It can also be used flat side up for a full 27mm of basing area which is almost the same space as the top of Games Workshop 30mm bevel-sided base.
The only disadvantage is that so much of my foam storage is setup for 25mm bases, but I can make accommodation for bases this size as well!
-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member
2 comments:
Great idea Karl, but as you say, the scale is a not perfect. Don't they make them in many different sizes, or haven't you had a chance to find out yet? We wargamers can be a bit anal about scale can't we :) Either way, is a cool find! Just out of curiosity, how did you come across these?
I came up with a different technique for basing pre-slotta minis a while back. If your interested, here's a link to a little tutorial I did on it,
http://papafakis.blogspot.com/2014/06/pre-slotta-bastard.html
Lastly, thanks for the tip Karl, I'll have a bit if a hunt around for them & see what sort of ranges I can find. Always on the lookout for cheaper alternatives for wargaming material.
Cheers.
Thanks,
Tthey come in different sizes, but 27mm is the closest to a standard slotta. I found some with interior measurements of 30 and 12mm (figure an extra mm or two in overall size) but those weren't what I needed. 27mm is a pretty good size for most of my needs.
Nice post as well on your part. I've thought about just such an idea many times, but I didn't know what product to use as filler. I may give this a try sometime.
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