Happy Thanksgiving

  Well it is that time of year again. Time to bulk up with carbs for the long winter months.  I find it best to add some extra weight so I am not at a loss for a decent New Years resolution.  One year I resolved never to weigh myself.  Not sure I would recommend that.

  I have some new collaborations in the works. A new resin terrain piece for 15mm scale.  These are made by a friend of mine and I have put them in the shop.  Resin is a bit pricier than plastic, mainly because it is much more time consuming to make. I am guessing most people know this already, but it is a huge difference in cost to make.

  Here is a shot with a scale reference;

 And something I dry brushed a bit;

  This was made using a 3d printed master and a lot of smoothing to get a mold ready product. I know there are some who claim that 3d printing can make mold ready masters, but the results are still rough form the ones I have tried. I used Shapeways, a company in Texas and a local guy to get printings done. They are costly and the results are still a bit fuzzy.  Take a look at this hover tank close up. This is a resin cast of a mold made from a 3d print. When looking at the print in the semi-clear frosted detail material it does not look too bad. But zoom in on a resin model and you see lots of areas that are fuzzy.

  Still learning and tinkering with this.


  I have been asked about the size of the snap fit walls, so here is a pic of that;

   I sent the infantry out to a 3d printing company because I want to make sure the parts fit together before I make them. I know they will be fuzzy but all I need to now is does the head fit on right.

  Well, that is all the news for now. I am going to do another controversial post in the future about how kick starter is changing the dynamic of the cottage industry.  I want to gather my thoughts on that one before I open my mouth and insert my foot.

  One last thing- in the spirit of the holiday I have enabled free shipping on the web store for all orders over $30.  This is for US customers only.  Overseas shipping has gotten really costly and I wish there was some way to ship for less. Unfortunately that solution has eluded me.

 Have a great Holiday everyone!

Snap fit walls available-

  I have been working on some odds and ends.  Elliot, who you may remember as the bloodthirsty Skaven commander who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in a Warhammer battle report, has been wanting some terrain for his heroic click style games.

  So we made some-

  The top picture shows one pack, and the bottom pictures shows his heroes fighting amid all the defects from the scrap box. They are available in the store here-snap fit walls

 I think it makes the game look a bit better than plain paper maps, but I do not really play heroic click games.  I still have some Red Barricades and Campaign in North Africa games to finish up.

  Also, and this is another embarrassing admission, the web store was screwed up.  It is linked to the USPS web site so it gives exact shipping based on weight and location. However, some time in the past, and without informing me, the postal service changed the coding they were using. The result is that first class was no longer showing up as an option. A single pack of bases was costing $5 to ship instead of $2.  I had no idea this was happening. I even got e-mail complaints about the shipping to which I replied, "Choose first class"  and forgot about it. Well I finally was looking over things and realized first class was gone. 

  I had to manually edit the HTML code to get it to work again.  Finding the error and editing a zillion lines of code is not my strong suit. Luckily there are helpful forums so I copied and pasted the repair that some smart person had shared.  Now first class is working again.  I think with the defeat of the dead battery gremlin the remaining gremlins have adapted and opened up a new front on me. This time in cyber space.

  But, at least for now they are again vanquished.

  And with that I am off to work again.

  Have a great week. 

 

New stuff and some details

  Hi folks.  Here is a pic of some renders sent to me by one of the designers. his name is Mark Guarnieri and he has been working to develop some infantry. I am planning on tackling these soon. Just want to iron out any problem areas first.  I like the generic feel to them.  Seem to be perfect for unsuspecting guards to be ambushed.

   In the meantime I keep working on 1 part female troopers as time allows. Which means very slowly.


  I want to clarify the contest idea I had.  It is going to be awarded to the 2000th  package I ship.  Right now I am somewhere between 1000-2000.  It is going to be awarded to the first web store order after 2000 is reached. You can not go by the order number, since about 90% of orders come from e-bay. E-bay sales count as packages but will not be able to win the 100 sprues.  Only stuff from the web store counts.

  AFTER the winner is notified then they will decide what they want.

  This is not a contest for the best idea for a product, it is kind of the reverse of that. You win first and then you decide what you want.

  I hope that clears things up a bit.  One of the issues I ran in to right from the start was people offering ideas for things to make. Once they told me, there was almost an obligation to reward them for their idea, even if I had already made CAD files of the exact same thing and had them setting on the hard drive.  Ideas have value, but the development is where the real labor lies. The tough ones were the generic stuff-  "Hey, I told you to make scantily clad Amazon women with spears. Now that you did it, I demand compensation for this."   Bad situation.

  Ok- just had to get that out there before there was some confusion.  I got some entrants for the idea contest and realized I had made a serious mistake in explaining things.    There is no idea contest, it is a reward for customers who have been bothered to follow along and watch this slow process unfold.


  Ok, back to work again.

All Gremlins, Large and Small

  Well, just like an epic game of Mortal Combat, I finally met the boss of the gremlins.  And he is dead for now.

  A cnc machine uses pulses of electricity to drive the motors to precisely position the axis. These pulse at about 10,000 per second. They can be altered for calibration. For months now the Novakon has been randomly repositioning itself and also going in to emergency shutdown, which also loses its position.

  This problem has been a real pain because it resulted in so many ruined molds and countless hours of lost work.  Thinking about it, I kept going at the problem from the wrong end. Always looking for the answer in the pulse drivers or the pulses per second setting, and never getting it fixed.

  One thing I noticed is when I would boot up the computer it would sometimes ask, "Hey, what day is this?".  So I would type in the date and figured it was just double checking. Then it occurred to me that a computer unable to keep time on a calendar might be having issues keeping track of seconds to within 1/10,000'ths of  a second. So I went to Walmart and spent about $5 on this.

 

 

  Yes this is the big boss gremlin, the mightiest problem causer of them all.  A battery that tells time. I thought once the PC was running the clock would be fine.  I was wrong again.  This is starting to get ridiculous.  What kind of problem solver gets his ass kicked for months by this little glitch?  Me.  Well no more. The gremlins are vanquished!

 

 

 

 

Ok, except for this one.  Exploding capacitors are always good for a few laughs and some smoke inhalation.  2 in one day is a new record.  Damn these gremlins are resilient, I will give them that.

 

 

  But, overall things are really going well. I made this mold with my new $5 Walmart battery keeping time. Ran it overnight while I slept too.  Perfect cooperation from the machine.

 



  Going to run some parts next week.  This is the second of my designer's products. This is a marker for a hero style board game. Look for a post once this gets cleaned up and run.

  And next up is this;

  This is the work of another of the designers I have contracted. We are filling in the other spots and going to have a go at it.  Figures are the final challenge and someday it will be overcome.

  I am still planning on running a thank you giveaway contest to my customers. I got to figure out if it is legal and all, but the basic idea is this;  the winner will get 100 sprues of their choice for free.  Meaning any that I make, or any that they want made. Come up with an idea and I will do my best to make the mold and give you 100 of them.  A lot of gaming people are creative and have great ideas but no access to the means to have those ideas realized. The contest will let someone have their idea come to life.  I got to work out the details but will post more info when I work out all the legal bits.  Like "rude forum posters are not eligible" and other fine print.

  And thanks for people who took time to vote for the grant contest. I made the 250 votes. The odds of getting the grant are small, but I figured why not give it a try.  If I get the money I will be hiring a helper for sure and getting a contract person to run the internet part of things. If I do not get the money you will have to continue to tolerate my amateur handling of things.


  OK, time to get busy again.  Have a great weekend. 

Happy Halloween

  Hi folks.  Just wanted to share a little story from my home town area that will you in the festive spirit for the holiday that is Halloween.

  During my nomadic youth I spent some years living just up the road from this house;

And prior to that I spent some time living about 2 miles below it.  I know the area pretty well. This house sets in an area called Rehmeyer's Hollow.  Down the road a bit is a small ridge line that separates it from Blymire's Hollow.  My great-great-grandfather had a farm down from this and my grandfather was about 30 when the "incident" took place that makes this house famous. My great-great grandfather fought in the militia when Lee showed up make noise in Gettysburg.

  Something about this area that is not well known is the prevalence of witches.  They are much fewer now and like to be called "pow wow" doctors. Here is an article for background.
http://braucher.webs.com/

  Most of the old folk know all about it and my grand parents knew a home remedy or 2 that kept me healthy. I remember whenever I would step on a board and have a rusty nail punch through my bare feet what to do.  All you had to do was find the nail, pull it out of the board, cover it in hog lard, and place it somewhere that the sunlight would never reach it. And presto, no infection.

  A conspiracy of doctors have tried to discredit these techniques to drive down the competition, so this secret is not well known. Same as the way VHS took out Beta.

  Anyhow, in the early 1900's this house was the home of a guy named Nelson Rehmeyer. He did not get along with his neighbors, the Blymires, who lived at the other end of the woods. Seems old Nelson took to casting hex spells at his neighbors and all sorts of bad things befell them. People still put these signs on their barns to prevent bad luck from happening in this area.

  Well the Blymire clan was not having much luck, so they did the obvious- they went to see the River Witch of Marietta.  She would counter the spells being sent there way, after all she was a pretty high level NPC.  She could not do this unless the Blymire could produce a lock of the hair of Nelson Rehmeyer.

   So one night they went to ask him for it. I have had some awkward conversations, but going to your spooky warlock neighbor at night to ask him if you and your friends might offer to trim up his hair has got to be the topper. I guess when all else fails, violence usually works and they ended up killing the old spell caster. Then they burned him. Or else the other way around, not sure about this.

   They got in trouble for this, because apparently our country has slid so far toward totalitarianism that you are no longer allowed to burn witches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehmeyer's_Hollow

 That article just gives what they want you to believe. Let me fill in some details from listening to my grandfather and from living around the area.

  I am not saying my grandfather was one of these pow wow people, but he had some interesting knowledge. He taught me how to tie a fishing knot, and how to get a spirit to lead you to buried money;  how to deal with a large mouth bass that leaps in the air to throw the hook, and ways to avoid the demonic familiar who could be guarding said treasure.  (To my shame, there was only one time I was ever alone in a room with a ghost, and profit was the LAST thing on my mind.)

 He told me when he was younger all the lands around there were prosperous farms. Now they are covered in new growth forest and brush. Hidden under all that growth are the remains of about 10 farms that died as a result of the magical curses leveled by the Warlock Rehmeyer.  No one lived in them and the county bought up all the land because they were abandoned. They turned the place in to a park for bike riders and hikers.  And they renamed it "Spring Valley Park."  Ha!  What a laugh.  I could take Mordor and rename it something cheerful and a bunch of yuppies would show up with their mountain bikes.
  
  Now days if my neighbor's Yorkie poops in my mulch I am upset. Imagine having this guy as a neighbor. This is straight up Magic the Gathering for REAL ante. If you lose you get some hideous sores oozing puss or something.

   So the house sets there, all alone in a patch of nothing. It has no trespassing signs up, which seem a bit much. Who needs to be told to stay away? Here is a pic of the hole in the floor and you can see the burn marks on the joist from the body. They say there are still blood stains too.

       One of the descendants owns the house and has tried to open it as a museum. He swears Nelson was not a witch, but one of the museum exhibits is supposed to be HIS SPELL BOOK.

  I am not Perry Mason, but either old Nelson had a real eclectic reading selection in the out house, or he was up to something. And just having a book with instructions for Satanic rituals to punish your enemies does not mean you are actually using it.

  But there is that last bit of evidence that is hard to refute.

  If your neighbors come to your house on a cold winter night and KILL you for WITCHCRAFT, you might be a witch.

  Just saying.

  So that is a ghost story from this crazy part of the world.

  Have a Happy Halloween.

Vote For ME!!!

  I need to ask a favor of everyone. And I got in to this really late so if you could spread the word it would be a HUGE help.

https://www.missionmainstreetgrants.com/#


This web site is handing out grants to US based small business owners. It is Chase Bank doing it, not the government.  I entered my info and would love to have the money for a couple of things;

1. Hire someone!
2. Buy a larger plastic machine.
3. Get a better CNC machine
4. Insulate the stupid shop so I do not freeze all winter.


  Please if you could go the link and click vote. Then enter Proxie Models and vote. You have to have a Facebook account to vote, I think to prevent me from voting for myself a million times. Please spread the word to every forum you can find. This is a chance for me to finally build a team and buy a  larger plastic injection machine. And maybe a decent CNC machine.  Mine has an attitude, as you can see by the picture of its warning label.

 

 

 Yes, that is how it has treated me since day one!  Finally I can replace its gremlins infested evil with something worthwhile.
  I found out about this a little late so I missed out on 24 days of voting. I hope I can make a comeback.

  I am going to post on a couple forums like Dakka, but if anyone visits any other forums please hook me up with a topic and a link.

 The real chance here is small but worth a click. I figure they are all going to go to the next person planning a social media network.

  But maybe, out of the 12 grants, they might consider a crazy person making plastic bits in a barn.

The Rules Lawyer

  I played a game of Warhammer some time ago against this fellow. He deployed his dwarven canon in a river, that was impassable terrain. The rules at that time did not allow movement in to the terrain but there was no explicit prohibition against deploying there.

   I tried to reason with him by pointing out the obvious; metal canons are not buoyant, dwarves treading water would have difficulties loading the canon,  wet gun powder is less flammable, etc. Nothing worked.  I lost the game but stopped playing Warhammer with the guy. Just not compatible.

   Some of you may be aware of certain forums where Proxie is being talked about.  I was on the Miniatures Page Forum in a specific forum called- The Industry, way down on page 2 of a thread filled with people complaining about Defiance games and I thought I would warn my fellow hobby/workers about my dealings with them.  It got pasted to a couple of other forums and people have been beating Defiance up about it.

   It was meant for people in the industry and not meant to harm them with customers. Since then I went back to the other forums to clarify. Defiance has also made some comments that were at best self destructive. More like really suicidal.

  This is all water under the bridge. I need to move on. I found the money to pay my property taxes so I still have a house to live in. There is no point crying over spilt milk, as the saying goes. Right now they need every dollar to make up the new kick starter models. If they pay back debts it might hurt them going forward.  Just be aware if you are a supplier to them that if you get defined as the "past" you are not part of the "future". 

  I will work with them again if we can get a simple legal document etched in stone by the finger of a Divine Being. It needs to be signed in blood of course, on the summer solstice in an Indian burial ground. A coven of naked Wiccans chanting around us in a circle is customary as well. And everyone knows that without the Papal seal no contract is binding.

  Just kidding.  :)     You have to not take life too seriously sometimes.

  Seriously, time to drop this and move on.

  BUT,  thanks to all the support from people on the forums. I did not know I had so many friends out there. You guys went after them like a bunch of saber toothed piranha.  I hope I never piss off the gaming community.