Link to video

  I posted to tabletop gaming news and realized the video was in the old stuff section. So here is another link to the how to video for any newcomers who might not want to read all the old stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-g-SJ-P9Wg&feature=youtube_gdata

Being wrong...............

  Hi again folks.

  When writing this blog I have often put forth my theory that the average American can pretty much figure anything out on his own and do it themself.  This is what allowed us to do all the neat things we have done over the years, like invent a time and matter displacement device all the way back in 1943.  (see Philadelphia experiment)

   Given an exacto knife, a Wikipedia diagram and enough time I am certain I could locate and remove my appendix in only a few tries. And who needs fancy radiation treatments when I have a perfectly good micro-wave right in the kitchen? Remove the door and over ride the saftey switch, and just that easy I am curing my ailments, saving money, AND making a Hot Pocket.

  However, this does not always work. Recently I was trying to make some better alignment, support and ejector pins. The cheap metal from Lowes was bending and getting the ends mushroomed from the force.  So I picked up some drill rod blanks, a really nice, smooth and straight type of metal. Only the web-site said they had to be heat treated by slowly heating them to 1700 degrees and quenching them in oil. How hard can that be? I have a cutting torch and it gets really hot. I do not know how hot, but if 1700 degrees is good, 17,000 degrees must be 10 times better. What could go wrong?

   Well......it turns out that super heated oil is REALLY flammable. And the science of metal working is a bit more complex than all that. I ruined most of the pieces by making them so brittle I can snap them by holding them in my hand and pressing with my thumb.  I guess what I am trying to say is that maybe sometimes it pays to have the right tools for the job.

   But things are getting done around here. I am going to be playing around with some new ideas, like this little model.

  I was looking at the gothic building and realized the only thing on the back was a couple of  shelves to glue floors to. So I was wondering if it would be possible to make a one sided building and simply have little squares to glue in for floor supports. This is the result of my little experiment. It is still 15mm in scale, the front entrance door is 20mm tall. The back loading dock doors are pretty large and I guess you could use a lot of them and make a shipping terminal.

  I am packing 2 of the door sprues and one window sprue per pack.  I will also make an all window pack available in case you want to add a second story to your building. The back side of these is simply a flat plate and this makes things a lot easier for me. There are no alignment pins to worry about and that cuts down on a lot of time needed to set up and run as well as making the mold itself. If you can think of anything else for a flat plate building design let me know. I was thinking maybe an air conditioner or vent might be cool.

  I have to apologize for the delay in getting any new things done, but it has been a bit busy doing some custom things and getting the full range of bases done.  There are a few things not in the store anymore. This means I only have a few left and have not had time to make some more yet. If you want something you know used to be there send me an e-mail and I will let you know how many I have left.   There are some things I want to re-do and make better, like the bill board and some others.  But time is always a limiting factor.

   And finally, it seems a squad of rabbits set up a listening post about 4 feet from where I am setting at my PC at this very moment.  One morning one of them was be-headed and laying outside my door. The next day another suffered the same fate, so I had to take the survivors into custody for their own safety.  I know that they will someday grow up to eat my blue berries,  (which I am currently heavily entrenching for the upcoming hostilities)  but it is against the Geneva convention for non-combatants to be treated this way. So now we are feeding the little guys with an eye dropper and waiting for them to get big enough to elude whatever merciless killer is stalking them.

     Have a great weekend.

Back from the show.. barely

Cold Wars was an interesting time. Lots of things to look at.  Swapped some bases with the Goblin Factory for some of his most excellent hobbits. Overall a good time to meet and talk to lots of fine folks. It pays to listen I guess. The number one comment in e-mails and in person has been- if only this was 28mm..........So that is going to be something to work on once I get some of these projects done. I will get to it, but I picked up a few more custom bits to make for folks and I am sorry if my little store has not had anything new for a while.  The sprue I am working on seems to be impervious to milling bits and snaps them with alarming frequency.  It has been called a few choice adjectives and still defies me. I am down to the .021" bits and almost done. What a tough go.

  So it was a nice show except for this.
 On Friday night the tranny blew out of my Chevy truck with only 59,000 miles.  The garage rolled a critical hit on the financial damage chart, and I failed my warranty saving throw and took full damage.  Egads.

  But on a positve note I met the guys from Bronze Age minis.  Very nice guys with a real can-do attitude. We brainstormed a bit and I was more than a little inspired.    In a flash of ingenuity it seems there may be another way to make molds that does not require painstakingly slow milling. Previous flashes of ingenuity have resulted in bodily injury, but this time I am more optimistic than most.

  Will keep you posted after I make more progress, but if people keep wanting stuff I got to keep making it. 

  Have a great weekend and enjoy it.  It may be the last one before we have to mow the lawn! 
  

Slow days, packing for the show

  Hi all.  Just getting ready for Cold Wars. It is quite convenient to have a convention a few minutes drive away. It lets me test the waters and still not have to stay overnight.  I am trying to make about 20 packs of each base type and other things, and make a display rack.  It is nice to talk to people.  Last time I was a guest of Rod from Highlander Studios, but this time I paid for my own table.   Sadly, I do not have a lot of new stuff to offer at the show. I have been working quite a bit on finishing out the line of bases and doing custom sprues, but I have not really made a pile of cool new things for my web store. 

   This little piece will remain untitled, but it has to connect to an existing model kit which makes it hard.  There is also some semi-clear plastic invloved with it.  The inside has to hold small lights too.  It was fun to model in the CAD program. Still have to do the wings for it.

 

  And this is a sprue of odds and ends that has been a real challenge. Lots of little corners to snap bits off with, and there was also another problem.  It was very windy one day and the power went out for a brief second.  Just a very short second. BUT the CNC servos are controlled by pulses of electricity. A string of G-code that is a 20,000 lines long goes by very fast, and even a split second of power fluctuation causes real nightmares.  It is times like that where it pays to have good solid walls to bang your head against. Tried my best to recover it, but I will not know exactly if this thing is going to line up OK till after I finish the second side and hope for the best.

    I found an artist who is going to help with some of the design work so I can focus on making stuff. The little plastic machine seems to be a bit happier of late and rarely tries to explode.  The you-tube video was fun to make, and it was very nice to read the comments both here and on a few forums where I posted it. Just 100,000,000 more views and it will pay some revenue.

  And that is about all the goings on around here.  Have a good time at Cold Wars and say hi if you are there.



Making movies.....and stuff

  Hello again. Today I am starring in a short video filmed by my daughter. I had read a few forums about plastic injection molding and it often seems that there are these smart people stating facts.  I tend to avoid smart people if at all possible.  Life is more interesting when you do not let reality get you down.  In fact reality is entirely over-rated. The video is sort of a companion to the blog, kind of a guide to the hobbyist plastic molder.   Here it is; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-g-SJ-P9Wg&feature=youtube_gdata

  I have been trying to standardize some bases and have a few more sizes available in matching finishes. Some 40mm rounds and sci- fi biker bases, and a solid chariot base.

  Most of my time over the past few weeks has been trying to keep up with making custom sprues for folks.  Really happy to have the business, but it seems it has been a while since something popped out of my head and onto my workbench. 
   The shapeways stuff has been a learning process, but in a way it also helped cement one idea in my head. That is concerning resin casting vs. plastic. They both have applications and I see where resin is much better in some ways. Looks like the "Big Boys" have gone over to all resin. But it seems kind of slow in a way. I think I will stick with plastic.
     Going to keep pluggin away and see where this goes. Will keep you posted.

  Have a nice weekend.

Exploring the options.......

  Well it has been too long since I last posted.  So here is what is happening.

  The parts came back from Shapeways and they were not good.  The legs were OK, and I was happy with the proportions.

 The arms looked too small. The guns were the worst. I knew gaming minis were a bit out of proportion but i never knew just how bad it was. I need to rework the models and give them ludicrous gun sizes.  You might notice the photos are a bit fuzzy. It is because shapeways is fuzzy. Everything looks like it is made out of lumpy pancake batter. And this is the frosted ultra detail. Wait till you see the regular stuff....

   My plan was to look into doing some resin stuff using the 3d printout as a master.  I spent the weekend plotting in the laboratory of Dr. Oogan's secret workshop.  It turns out this entire model is made of an extremely lumpy material that does not even sand well.  Sand off the lumps and find more lumps underneath.  Quite a let-down. Even the ultra stuff had a fuzziness to it that was very odd.  I am looking into a different 3d printing service that uses another type of process and will see how they look.

   Overall getting a real model in hand is vital before I commit to mill out out the mold. If I had cut out the figures I would have been stuck with puny guns. And we all know the best heroes carry huge guns like Dirty Harry.

  In the meantime I am busy making a new line of uniform bases. It may seem odd to spend time making bases, but I seem to sell a lot of them, and they are easier to make. The Mark 2 tank has been very unpopular but the bases sell by the pile. So, even though I do not want to be driven by money, it seems to be imperative that I limit non-selling specialty items to a small amount.

  The whole advantage of plastic is the ability to mass produce. That benefit vanishes when the sales volume is tiny for a particular item. Which is why I explored the option of resin casting.  Once I get some not lumpy printouts I am going to be offering some resin items for really oddball stuff.

  In the meantime, back to the drawing board as they say. This saying seems to always follow in the wake of crappy results. But, taking time to see the figures will make for a better mold when I start on it.

  I recently read a book called "Keep Going".  It seems to be a fitting title for days like this.

  More news on the models as it arrives.

   But now for important news. The tale of the ongoing struggle between my carefully hand built natural fish habitat and the filthy wildlife bent on despoiling it.  My fish have all been slain.  I looked behind the waterfall and beneath the lilies. Dead. All of them.

  Perhaps a more agressive fish could survive the dangers...... maybe the Pacu.

http://www.odditycentral.com/news/ball-cutter-fish-kills-fishermen-by-biting-off-their-testicles.html


  Have a good day.

  


 

Back in action

  Well the leg is still there so I figure I best get up and use it once in a while.  Back to making things and planning even more things.  I made some 15mm DBA bases and put them in the store. I also re-made the 40mm round base with a smooth finish to match the 60mm round. I want to define it and place both in the store.

  I sent all the infantry to a 3D printer and will wait till they get back before proceeding.  Also looking to do some odds and ends in resin. Like this cargo container and magnetic lift crane;

  This is going to mark an attempt at working in resin. It seems to be a better medium for stuff that will not sell to many copies.  They are sort of smallish and would make nice litter for my sci-fi troops to be splattered and die against in a game.

  Here is a concept of the new stalker tank;

  Yes it is a grav tank. No more limping around on tracks, it is full speed shoot and scoot.

  These items are based off designs by Richard Jeffries.

  Going to the Cold Wars show if they will let me in.  Will have an assortment of bases and with any luck the new crane. The tank is not likely, as this could be a bit of work to get done. I am trying to evolve into 28mm, simply because 15mm sci-fi is not as popular as it should be (in my opinion). Still planning to do some secretive non-sellable things in 15mm for my own use.   I recently had to try and figure out how to make something too big for my machine, and it can not be done. BUT, if I could sell a few thousand copies of a tank, I could make a 4 mold version of this tank in 28mm.  So that is what is most likely going to happen to the stalker tank here.
  A 28mm tank selling for $15-20 should be in my near future. After I get the infnatry sprues back from shapeways. I just wanted to see the proportions before commiting to cutting on a block.

  And in boring lifestyle news;

   I  have to give up the adolescent life of the video game player and return to productive work.  I wanted to give a last bit of advice to anyone playing Skyrim.
  The picture is Mjoll the Lioness. She is my new treasure carrier. Even ignoring the fact she looks like a cross between Braveheart and Bo Derek, and talks with a thick Bavarian accent, she is also immortal and simply a killing machine. The best follower in all of Skyrim. Lydia could get me into trouble, Mjoll also gets me into trouble but gets me out as well and leaves a trail of corpses in her wake.  Give her a few magic weapons and it gets scary.  However, avoid letting her carry any magic staffs unless you want to get them back out of charges. She opens up with a staff in each hand on any foe we meet, so I had to take them away from her.

  I know what you are thinking. Was Lydia's death an accident? Or simply a conveniant way to dispose of her and make room for Mjoll? 
  
   It's only a game.