By Rick Berry Hausser/Elastolin made a wide variety of figures in many different historical periods but each product line is missing some key poses that would greatly enhance the variety. Because Elastolin figures are made from plastic and were sold as unpainted kits you can create many new poses with conversions. Recently Preiser has made Elastolin kits available again at a reasonable price and has also issued generic "Adam and Eve" kits with basic body parts that can also be used in conversions. I also use broken figures to make conversion as they can usually be picked up quite cheaply. Elastolin conversions can range from the simple- the swapping a torso or set of legs...to the complex- building a completely new figure with various parts from various figures. The basic tools used in Elastolin converting are a Xacto saw and knife, some kind of filler (I used Kneadtight Expoxy Ribbon), sandpaper and files and "Plastic Weld"... a plastic solvent cement. Note: Super Glues do not work well with Elastolin plastics. All figures shown are 7cm in scale but 4cm can also be used. Click the follow the links below to view conversions. Norman Mounted Conversions #1 Elastolin Norman Mounted Conversions #2 Normans: More Complex Conversion A Gallery Of Conversions: Vikings For Reference: All figure numbers provided are Hausser/Elastolin catalog numbers and taken from the book Elastolin Kunststoff-Figuren By Andreas Pietruschka and Fritz Miller Available for sale at Toy Soldier Books page. -Click Here- for a pop-up window with more conversions.

Normans: Mounted Conversions #1 These simple conversions were made by swapping the torso of Archers #8644 #8642 and #8647 and putting them on the legs of the mounted Norman #8854 or #8857 (these two are the best kits to use in mounted conversions).

Normans: Mounted Conversions #2 These simple conversions were made by swapping the torsos of running Norman #8830 and walking Norman #8833 , and putting them on the legs of the mounted Norman #8854 or #8857

Normans: A More Complex Conversion This Norman throwing a grappling hook was made from figure #8838. The torso was heated and twisted up. The arms were repositioned by cutting and regluing and then filled. The head was cut from figure # 8837,glued and filled. The rope was made with string dipped in white glue. The hook was made from plastic styrene.

A Gallery of Viking Conversions All of these figures were made from parts of Elastolin and Preiser kits, broken figures and expoy. Many of the heads were made from the Preiser Adam kits and sculpted using epoxy ribbon or original Elastolin heads, enhanced with epoxy. All clothing enhancements were also made from epoxy ribbon. With a little imagination and a little work you can create exciting new poses to compliment the figure issued by Hausser/Elastolin.