Hope springs eternal

  Hello again folks.  The weather is finally starting to cooperate a little bit and that means we all wake up from our winter time slump.  I have long advocated for human hibernation, with continuous eating of fattening foods starting on Thanksgiving and ending with the Super Bowl. Then, we simply roll over on the couch and awaken in mid April about 100 pounds lighter and ready for fishing season. Sadly, science has failed to work on this brilliant idea.

  I want to give some tips for other people trying to make their own molds out there, but first I would like to get atop a soap box and explain the type of mindset one has to have to tackle this. You have to be an old timer. Let's face it, people today are usually not equipped to deal with things the way they did 40 years ago. We went to the moon in 1969 or crying out loud. How did we do it? By saying "What the Hell?,  Let's go for it."  The people of that era were notorious risk takers compared to today's safety obsessed crowd. A 1968 Road Runner could be purchased with a 425 horse power Hemi and DRUM BRAKES.  Running on bias ply tires and wearing a lap belt. World War One pilots had a longer life expectancy.  Today the typical car is packed with a mighty 100 horse power 4 cylinder and has 11 dozen air bags. This is getting out of control. I am no longer allowed to use DDT on these blasted mosquitoes flying around.  Why? Because we are all brainwashed to be afraid of things. Not to take risks and fail. Well failure ain't so bad. Trust me, I have a lot of experience with it and after a while it sort of loses its sting. Your first couple of tries are going to be crap, and I still take a pretty high failure rate after doing this for over a year. I just had a whole lot of time and bits go down the drain in a failed mold, but it is part of the terrain out here in budget land. Setting here kicking myself is not going to get me too far.

  So, after the last post I have some advice. Find a place called Fastenal. There is one around the corner from me and I am sure they have online sales. They sell pre-hardened 1/8 drill rod for about $2.75 for a 3 foot section. Cut into 4 inch pieces that makes a lot of ejectors and keeps the fire trucks away.  They have lots of other goodies too, like brass fittings for the cooling lines. The 1/8 rod from Lowe's has too much variation in diameter and this causes problems.

  Most of the stuff I use I pick up at Harbor Freight, but there are sometimes some issues with it. For example, the 1/8 drill bit they sell can go from .120 up to .128 in size. Does not seem important but it is.  Get a micrometer and check the drill bit diameter and the rod diameter. They should be tight so plastic does not ooze around the rod and grip it causing the part to stick.  I am going to make another video soon I think showing the steps more closely.

  And now for some pics of things I am working on-

  This is a conversion part and marks my first use of clear plastic. The inside is able to take LED lights. Have a little refinement to do on this one. Will allow space ship modelers to recreate variations of a popular sci-fi series ship.

  This is a custom base mold made for a client. Little sockets were tricky. It is for 6mm scale stuff. I can send you a link to the guy to buy them from if anyone wants them.

  Here is the next mold up for a client. I am programing this one and going to run it soon.

  Here are some terrain pieces that are being done in resin. It is going to be an experiment to see how resin works out. Going to look into this as far as I can, as it seems interesting.

  And this is my attempt to make my women warriors more "heroic" scale.  She has had a steady diet of vitamin "S".  (sugar)  This has got be be close and I want to cut these out someday. Notice how the gun requires a forklift. Perfect fit for the industry standard.

  Finally getting the replacement for the billboard designed. A simple little piece that adds to the table because you can glue on business cards from your local businesses and make your battle field look familiar.

  The pond has new goldfish so I hired these duckling mercenaries to stand watch. Here they are alertly on patrol. They ran screaming from a frog so I am not too confident right now.

  And finally, the next picture is proof that I am not as bad as some when it comes to deciding what to make. Seriously, how did no one question this before it went to market?

    Have a nice week and enjoy the beautiful weather.