Playing in the slums

  Well I keep getting a little healthier day by day.  I am not sure when NyQuil becomes an addiction but I think I am going to find out.

I made this double wide slum habitat for some city in the corner of the galaxy.  I am not sure who this mini is from. I got it off e-bay some time ago. He just blasted threw the door.
   I like the flats and think they are somewhat useful. It is nice to have an unlimited supply for sure.

  I am going to ponder some odds and ends.

  First off, the hobby in general.  I got to admit that wargaming has become confusing for me. There is so much coming so fast that it seems impossible to be part of all of it. So it seems easier to be part of none of it. Lately I can muster no enthusiasm for the latest new product line. And my finances could not do it if I wanted to.

  Kickstarter is running amok. Every few seconds there is a new product to pre-purchase. There are new rules to learn, new fluff to read and new armies to collect and paint. This is a golden time to be in the hobby for sure.

  Unless you already have a huge collection of models and rules you still like from the bygone era.

  I just realized how long it has been since I played Squad Leader. Or Fantasy Rules! by Chipco. And why did I make an Army Builder file for Warhamer 3rd edition? Just to throw it aside along with years of painting so I can run out like some easily manipulated consumer?

  So expect a few posts about crap most people could care less about. I simply can not muster enough enthusiasm to tweet all my friends about some all new Gate of Antares or whatever.  I do fondly remember playing Red Barricades and a host of other old gems that deserve to be dusted off once in a while.

  My current wargaming project is to base up a lot of 1/72 scale WW2 models, scan and massively enlarge my Squad Leader maps, and then combine the best of both worlds. If possible I am going to make a couple of sc-fi models to go along with them.

  Once my Reaper kickstarter pile of goodies arrive,  ( I know, I was weak and it was just that one time)  I am going to run some games of Chipco Fantasy Rules! at a local shop. It is the finest fantasy rule set ever. It only needs a couple of tweaks to be perfect. There is a strong likelihood I am going to make a few models of a generic nature for Chipco or other games. Whatever I happen to feel like throwing in to the collection.

  In the meantime there is still slot car racing. This hobby has been soaking up most of my attention.

  I plan to make a few more products for it someday. Here is my new track upgraded to 1/24 scale. It is digital and can run 6 cars at a time. Mostly 2 lanes wide but one section is opened up to 4 lanes wide.  I am tinkering around with converting static models to slot cars.

 These are some of my latest projects.  I find it the ultimate walk down memory lane because I have driven both of these cars at one time.

  And with a lucky lottery ticket will once again.

  Have a great weekend folks. And maybe take a moment to revisit an old favorite.

Pre-fab building woes

  OK, I glued together some of the new sprues and slapped them with a little paint. I left the roof loose so it can be lifted off to see inside.

  It makes a neat little sci-fi shack. I have some concerns, like I always do.  ( I got a bad feeling about this drop!)

 The rivets are not exactly the same size. This irritates me quite a bit but it took me some time to notice. I showed a friend and he spent a lot of time looking for an error and could not find it without me telling him.  It makes me want to start over, but then again it is not that bad and I got a lot of other things to make. I am going to let it go and if I get a lot of complaints I will have to find time to re-make the entire one mold just to make a rivet .002" smaller.  Damn the littlest problems can cause the strangest headaches. If you buy one be warned.

  But on the other hand, there is some neat stuff in here.

 

 

This is the outside. Corrugated metal with rivets. There is a roof sprue, a plain wall sprue, and a door/window sprue. There is also a "molding" sprue to fill in the corners. It has a solar panel and vent fan on it also. 

 

 

This is the inside. Plainer walls. You can reverse it if you want.

 

It is possible to glue a couple together and make a larger structure. It is not battle damaged but you could take a nippers to it and hack it up if you wanted to. I plan on doing that to mine. The doors and window are pretty thin and can be cut out for open doors.

 

  I am currently in the throes of fighting the mightiest virus ever to plague mankind. As soon as I stop being toxic I plan on getting some of these out to a friend for some proper painting and will post better pics then.

 

  There are definitely a few of these going out on my next city battle field. Some simple dwellings for the commoners.

 

 



  Here is an AT-43 trooper for size comparison.   I am going to have little fun with these for sure.

  Not sure what will pop up next. I got 2 more widgets to make and I am working with a few folks to make some other terrain stuff.

  But, the real issue is that I have to cross the hurdle and make minis. So far I keep playing it safe with nice and simple stuff. But what I really want to make is lots of plastic figures at a reasonable price for people like me. While this building took 4 double sided molds to make a small model, I could be producing 4 28mm figures per sprue. The press is perfect for figures, and I keep avoiding it because of the enormous complexity involved.
  The problem with figures is it take so many hours to design and program the CNC machine. There are so many steps. One error in any step and you have rivets that are the wrong size. With a ramshackle building it makes little difference. With a model figure it might make the entire mold worthless.

  After these couple of widgets I am going to begin having another go at some plastic figures. I will try and refrain from profanity laced posts when things go wrong, but I might show a render or 2 and a pic of a block of metal becoming a mold.

 I am in a race against kick starter. I think this is going to be interesting.

Have a nice weekend folks.

News flash-story in a little while......

 Ok, I have been laying low and plotting global domination. Word has reached the U.N. and they have thwarted me with a global conspiracy.
 The result  is I must announce that I have stopped shipping international packages. In case you do not know this, the cost to ship overseas has gotten very costly. Overnight the price shot up more than 50% in many cases.
 My web-store is supposed to calculate the weight and give a price bases on location. It is not even close right now. I am getting killed and have essentially been giving stuff away. The webstore charges $11 and the post office hits me for $20+. 
  I stopped accepting E-bay bidders except for US and have disabled international shipping in the store until I can sort this out. Today I posted 2 of my lightest packs of bases in a bubble wrap mailer weighing a grand total of 3.8 ounces and it cost $9.45  to get to Europe.  I like selling stuff, but the shipping was more than the contents. And they were the lightest things I make!
   Once the online shipping calculator starts getting its act together I will resume international shipping. However, I honestly do not know how many people are going to want to pay that kind of cost.
  In the meantime work continues on various odds and ends. It is my goal to try to put something new out for my store every month of 2013. So far I put 2 new base sizes in the store in January and just missed getting the new building done.   I will make another run at an organic people mold soon, and this time it might be workable. The 28mm tank is going to take a LOT of work because this press is so small. It might be delayed until I can round up another scrap metal press that is a little larger. Regarding this,  I have to learn to keep my mouth shut a bit more.
     It seems that a few friends of mine have had some ideas poached by openly talking about their plans on forums and next thing you know- BAM! that idea is out there and they were SOA.
I am a bit more chapped than usual because my Holy Grail of models I have been wanting to make, ( and talking about to bored people every where) now has a kickstarter. And it is not my kickstarter. Talk about a real bummer. Well my girls are going to be making an appearance regardless someday. When, I can not say.
But I have been working on them.

In the next day or so I will have the final part to a new product ready to sell. I have been working on a 28mm building kit and so far it looks OK. I squeezed it in between little odds and ends I have been making.


  Ok, that is it for now. Going to assemble and paint a new building or 2 and take some pics before I put them in the store.

   Look for a post shortly.

  PS. Please understand I am going to get international shipping fixed someday, just right now it is crazy. Sorry if you are put off by this decision, I do not set shipping rates or run the online calculator. Will be back ASAP.

Happy Holidays to All!

  Hello again everyone. It has been sometime since I posted anything of use. Mostly because I had nothing really to report.  :(  

  Actually it has been a pretty good year, and I got a lot to be cheerful about. I know some people have had horrible times and I hope they can dig out and have a better one next year. Keep plugging away and it all works itself out.  Sometimes it seems like it never will, but it does.



  I am almost bursting with news that I wish to spill but I have to wait till it works out before I can post it.  Good things are on the way folks, and I thank those who have been supporting me.

 I was really planning on my next post being a release of something new, but I have been so busy making piles of plastic parts I have not had time to run anything new on the mill. That is going to change because I plan on getting some help in the shop. That's right-employees! OK, they are also my 2 teenage daughters who are pretty reluctant. But since I can cut off their cell phone service at any time, I think I can motivate them.

   So have a very Happy Holiday everyone. It is really a great time to be alive and a pretty nice planet to hang out on. The rest of the ones in our solar system are crappy, so we lucked out! And those Mayans were wrong. So we got until the next apocolypse to set back and relax.


Merry Christmas world.   And "Mr. Claus", thanks for all the orders. I am working on them right now!

 



Pulled out some old boxes....

  Hello again.

 It has been a very hectic few months for sure. I was back on the phone with those tax people, trying to de-bug the new web site, and re-wiring my garage.  Once I get all that done I am prepping for a gangbuster 2013.

  Why? Because I am going to focus on making things for the store and not make widgets.  You may have noticed I put a price increase on the store when I re-made it. Well accountants have a way of opening your eyes a bit. While widgets seem like a great idea, they produce no residual sales. Another lesson learned the good old fashioned way.
   So I have been revving up the old CNC machines and making things more reliable. The large one I have already documented its upgrade. That motor produced an electromagnetic field similar to the Philadelphia experiment. I added some back to the future shielding and it is behaving for now and I am still here in 2012.
  But the little desktop model, man has it ever plagued me. The bearings wear out in about 2-3 days. This has grown intolerable so I figured might as well do a little modification.  When you do this sort of thing there is overkill, and then there is MAXIMUM OVERKILL!

The motor on the right came out of it. It is about as powerful as a toothbrush motor. The one on the left is going in as soon as I can make room for it.

 



  Just look at the diameter of that monster. I picked it up off e-bay. It is made in China but has German bearings. It has water cooling tubes, is 220 volt, 3 phase and I am anxious to fire it up.  I had a little trouble at the breaker box, which is why I am re-wiring.

  I told my friend the other day that trying to make do with this cheap ass equipment is like trying to compete in a Gold Demon painting competition using only a box of Crayolas.  Unless I hit that poweball jackpot I am still stuck with the crayolas, but I am at least going to make them as sharp as possible.

 

  Why do all this?  Because this stuff is setting on the PC and I want to see it in real life. This is more of the 28mm set.

 

outside

inside

 

  I hope they work out.

 

  And about that box.  I dug out an old army I have not used in ages and thought I would take some pics. I sold off a bunch of stuff 2 years ago and sometimes I think about selling some more odds and ends. This army was always one of my favorites. I only really built it to match the high elves I got stuck somewhere in another box. Selling off these 2 armies will limit my WFB games. But I really do not play that much anymore. 

 

  I hope some of the images do not offend, yes that one crossbow guy is yelling and making obscene gestures. And it is very cold in Naggaroth.........

 

 

 

General with his guard. Most infamous moment was failing a stupidity check in a tourney and making a half move into a wall of missile fire instead of running them down.

The puniest dragon ever.

Dark riders.  Made with Rohan horses, wood elf legs and plastic parts. I like this unit, although it fights like a UN peacekeeping force.

From the old days. Witch on chaos steed.

 

Heavy panzers. Look nice but usually behave stupidly.

Some long range hitters.

A couple of heroes.

Some air support. Butterflies are tougher, but I like the concept.

Black Guard. Stubborn made these guys very good at dying. I like to run 24 models, 8 wide by 3 deep.

Corsairs. No idea why, but core and kind of neat.

Witches. Very good in the right situation. They once splattered a unit of skaven so horribly I felt sorry for them. It is pretty bad when me and my opponent have to wear safety glasses during a table top game.

Spears. I run these 5X5. Not a bad unit really. More core troops.

 

And there are 3 units like this one to fill out the rest of the core requirements.

 

 

  And that is another look at a pile of lead in the basement.  I have a lot more to show someday.

 

  Have a good week and keep warm.





New site active

  After a few days feeling a little like this.

  I finally sorted out the web store.  Just a friendly suggestion to folks looking for open source shopping carts.  Do not use OS Commerce.  It was not user friendly.  I found that Open Cart works so much better and has a pretty easy interface. The template comes with all sorts of PC components in it already for sale.  I removed all I found, but if you see something that makes no sense it most likely should not be there.

  I will update more when I make some new things, but for now I got unlimited web space!!!

 The blog is going to be migrating into the web site also, since it has that feature built right in.  Things are going to be as smooth as silk from now on. I promise. 

Catch 22

  Just a quick note that the web site is down for a little while until it gets transfered to a new server. This is the long awaited new store with more slots available at a much lower price. I guess my old domain host was counting on customers who do not have google.
   A recent series of events have created a crossroads moment. I have given up trying to figure out how to do my state taxes and decided to close shop and continue operations in a commando fashion only. However, in order to close shop I have to have all taxes up to date. I tried to explain that the only reason I am forced to close shop is because the taxes are a hideous nightmare of frustration, and in fact if I could do the damn taxes I would never consider closing shop. The tax people failed to see the irony in all of this.  After being bounced through at least 12 different departments it became obvious that my state department of revenue is hopelessly clueless.  BUT, I have to do these stupid taxes in order to exist AND in order not to exist.

  I love the show Firefly. He just gets in his ship and flies away.
  Anyhow, I bit the bullet and hired an accountant. It was a bleak day of despair indeed.  How did we ever get to this place?
  So my accountant has gotten things sorted and I am going to keep trying to exist, if my overlords will allow it.
   Once I figure this new site out and get it hooked up I will fill everyone in on all the new directions we are headed and the mistakes of 2012 that will not be repeated.

  Have a very nice Thanksgiving and buy something nice for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLLFPfk14UI