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Looking exciting. How soon do you think you might be able to have a product for sale here? Only ask because just entered Skalk Bloodaxes terrain comp. and your boxes might make a wonderful debut.

the point is...i am interested... but currently money...well...we´ll see if richness is suddenly getting the better of me all of a sudden

Camkierhi wrote:Looking exciting. How soon do you think you might be able to have a product for sale here? Only ask because just entered Skalk Bloodaxes terrain comp. and your boxes might make a wonderful debut.

Thanks Cam.
Once I've checked that they come out well and decided on some kind of pricing scheme (I currently have no idea what I should or could charge for them, I need to do a little research as well as discover how much resin is used for each box).
That is all the main job for the coming week, so soon.

Viktor von Domm wrote:the point is...i am interested... but currently money...well...we´ll see if richness is suddenly getting the better of me all of a sudden

It is interesting that you are interested. I'm sure we can come to some mutually agreeable agreement.

In other news; As Camkierhi mentioned, Skalk is starting up a competition to build a small piece of terrain. So if there's anyone here that hasn't heard about it yet or follows Skalk's thread (it's very much worth a look in any case), have a look here.

 Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:
here's a general idea of how it would go:

- Pieces would be intentionally small. Bases would be no larger than a 40K 60mm round base, but no smaller than a WFB 40mm square base (exceptions- 25X50mm WFB calvary base, 25X70mm 40K bike base, WFB 20x80mm troop base). You do NOT have to use a GW base, I’m mentioning them only for scale ref.

- Timeframe would be 4 weeks w/ a one week 'stress extension' if absolutely necessary for extenuating circumstances, but no exceptions beyond that flex time and I would prefer to not have to use it. On average it takes (me) a few hrs to build and paint one of these. The only reason I'm going 4 weeks is because I want to make sure the latecomers have a chance to enter and finish a piece, also the opportunity to catch up for people that find IRL is suddenly affecting hobby time.

- I'm also thinking about assigning 3 classes for judging- Expert (we all know who these guys are), Normal People (ha!), and special category Lurker. Come on lurkers, I know you guys are out there. Speak up and join the fun!

Important note, no WIP pics here. My opinion is that participation drops when WIP pics are posted. That coupled w/ the 3 judging categories will (hopefully) increase participation.

All- PLEASE do not let this take time from your primary projects, ESPECIALLY if you are in the LoER contest or a paint competition or finishing up an army for a Tourney. This contest is intended to be a fun pastime as you wait for glue / paint to dry. It won't be a huge project for most of you to do on 'spare time' but I wanted to be clear on that.

As mentioned it's only meant as a quicky, fun, side-project and there's plenty of time to think about what you want to do as it doesn't start yet.

Start- 0000 Your time zone Friday Nov 15th
End- 5pm MY time zone (EST) Friday Dec 13th

Get your thinking caps on (I have) but don't glue anything yet.

i already have plans for two entries...^^

Two! I haven't even settled on what setting I want to set my piece in yet... nevermind what it is, was or could have been...

Although I won't worry much about it until the comp' actually gets going and we have a full set of rules to work to.

well....i want at least one entry to be a funny one

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
well....i want at least one entry to be a funny one

Somebody has to do it.

Good news; I appear to have enough silicone to make one more mould.
This is of the small box, which however, leaves the large box with the cross beam un-moulded for now.

This means, that by Monday I'll have no more moulds to make and can therefore look at filling these moulds with resin.

As the resin cures in 10 minutes (although I'll probably leave it longer to fully harden), it shouldn't take too long to see if the moulds are any good and therefore I'll have casts to sell hopefully by the end of the week...

Then if these sell well and I make enough money, I'll be able to buy more silicone (and more resin as required) and make more moulds of more things (that I've yet to make), there will then be more things to buy and so on...

if i ever travel down the mold making and casting road... i think i would get even balder way quicker.... i bet this is a hairpulling suspense, eh?

if you start selling... then give me a shout...

Looking good
Oh yeah, I will be making pics soon of Batou back from the cyber-eye doc.

Viktor von Domm wrote:if i ever travel down the mold making and casting road... i think i would get even balder way quicker.... i bet this is a hairpulling suspense, eh?

It is as you start to think if you missed or forgot something, or will a bubble be trapped somewhere... and there's no repair work you can do if it does go wrong (you can remove bits, but you can't add material at least as far as I know) and it's a reasonable chunk of money to just throw away.

But in reality, the silicone is "self-degassing" in which I assume means that it stays fluid for long enough for bubbles to rise to the surface (although I do bash the sides and bottom of the mixing pot and then the mould box with a hefty scalpel handle). And it has behaved itself throughout my adventure, so probably shouldn't be that scary.

The main thing is to really thoroughly plan out everything you need and everything you will do before you start (my lab training probably helps here). There's plenty of tutorials out there that give a very accurate idea of what it needed.

if you start selling... then give me a shout...

K. Will do.

shasolenzabi wrote:Looking good
Oh yeah, I will be making pics soon of Batou back from the cyber-eye doc.

Thanks Shas. Woot!

banging...hmmm....i know RS Jake once told us that he used to use a massage thingy

and yep... the whole money wasting aspect and the fact that you work with live chemicals at home is currently keeping me from testing it myself...

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
banging...hmmm....i know RS Jake once told us that he used to use a massage thingy

Yeah, I don't have any personal massage thingies to hand right now, so I just have to make do manually...
I could probably rig something up with an old electric toothbrush I have laying about, but that requires effort...

and yep... the whole money wasting aspect and the fact that you work with live chemicals at home is currently keeping me from testing it myself...

Compared to what I'm used to the chemicals are pretty tame and for the average person (never mind the extra special person that you are ) the silicone chemicals aren't that bad. Avoid eating it, or sticking it in your eyes and try not to get any on your skin (some people may have allergic reactions) and it's fine. Obviously it says wear suitable protective clothing and eye protection, but it says that on some dishwasher tablets (or other household chemicals) and who has safety spec's in the kitchen...
The chemicals for the resin are slightly more harmful, but I've not looked closely at the MSDS yet, so I'm not sure.

Eye surgery was a success on Batou!

 shasolenzabi wrote:
Eye surgery was a success on Batou!

Yes indeedee.

and who has safety spec's in the kitchen...

,e does....no...i am kiddin´ of course

the tooth brush is actually a very good idea... especially if it has more than one speed ...

and nothing beats hand treatment, eh?

 Dr H wrote:

 shasolenzabi wrote:
Eye surgery was a success on Batou!

Yes indeedee.

Glad you liked! I am also pleased with the curvy form the Major got by Kev at Hasslefree

Vik: It's only single speed and was playing up last time I used it (hence it's free nature).

and lol

Shas: Yep, looks great.

The mould is ready.

All good again.
You can see I had a couple of bubbles in this one. I actually think that these were water that I think I dripped on when marking the volumes on the mixing pot. No harm done though and top tip; keep water off your moulds.

Getting close to finishing the latest commission piece, so that's another nice big tick.
I will soon start to collect pieces together for the next build in here and there will be Skalk's competition piece to do in the background...

I'll be back soon to report on my casting exploits...

Just a thought, but as the crates are built out of six one-sided casts did you need to do a two-part mould for them? If there's one completely flat surface isn't a one-piece mould more efficient?

 monkeytroll wrote:
Just a thought, but as the crates are built out of six one-sided casts did you need to do a two-part mould for them? If there's one completely flat surface isn't a one-piece mould more efficient?

Technically, yes.
But I wanted to produce them with nice angled edges so they fit together (reasonably) well, and it's good practice for my moulding of future things.
If I was going that far, I could have also just done the moulds with three of the sides and cast twice for each box (at the expense of halving the life of the mould, however long that may be).

2-part molds are quite impressive! Damn professional looking for your first one too!

Also you possibly have the option of producing a detailed interior mould in the future with a two part mould.

Looking great, very professional. You make these things look very easy, but I know they are not.

dsteingass wrote:2-part molds are quite impressive! Damn professional looking for your first one too!

Thanks. Hopefully it follows to what comes out of them, as that's what I want to look professional.

Camkierhi wrote:Also you possibly have the option of producing a detailed interior mould in the future with a two part mould.

Looking great, very professional. You make these things look very easy, but I know they are not.

Thanks. You didn't see all the head scratching while staring intently at pieces of box laid out on a lego board... And there's all the time reading tutorials and collecting all the things together that I would need... and smoothing out the plasticine (the clay shapers that I got for the putty work are also useful for this)...

Mould update: I've just finished testing the moulds for leaks and discovering the internal volumes.
The only leak issues I found were from not securing the mould halves together firmly enough and only required the swapping of rubber bands and trimming of the pieces of plastic I'm using for the boards (that go either side of the mould so the rubber bands don't bite into the silicone).
The toilet mould did require a little cutting here and there to open up channels a bit more, although the thin pipes of the cisterns may prove to be a problem, we will have to see how they turn out in the end.

The moulds are now being dried and I may attempt a cast later, if not it'll be a job for tomorrow.

But it's afternoon/evening, so you Gould just be waking up now , no excuses get it done

Thank you Theo, yes.

Well I had a go and it didn't really go to plan...

I was over-ambitious as to how quickly I could fill the moulds, mixed enough to fill all of them and it set before I got the second one half full...

I started with the toilet mould and took too long trying to get the resin to come out of the far toilet and the upper cisterns (which I ended up top filling) that before I got the box 2 mould filled my syringe became stiff and I noticed that the mixing pot had changed from clear to white. So I've ended up with a nice cast of the bottom of my mixing pot and the inside of my syringe...

Also, you will see the result of the bubbles in the two Tiny Toilets (tm). The one on the right is not that bad, but the other one is a bit too big. Which is a shame, because the one with the large bubble has a flat rear to the toilet and the other one (with the smaller bubble) has a large space in the rear as it wasn't properly filled...

You can also see that of what there is of the box has quite a few bubbles inside it...

There's also a fair amount of flashing...

However, Two of the Tainted Toilets (tm) seem to have come out well and the cisterns seem ok too.

So, lessons learnt:
Mix smaller amounts and do moulds one at a time.
Find a way to hold the mould halves together a little firmer.
Don't bother filling one of the Tiny Toilets (tm) as that bubble is a bit too problematic.

Lets hope for more success with the next attempt...

even with bubbles i see much use for these toilets...and holes/bubbles in the box boards is no obstacle either as it looks almost as knotholes...

but patience of course always win ...i keep my fingers crossed for more ^^

also... th mixing pot and the syringe casts...well they will be useful...eventually...a good hobbiest never throws anything worthwhile away...

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
even with bubbles i see much use for these toilets...and holes/bubbles in the box boards is no obstacle either as it looks almost as knotholes...

but patience of course always win ...i keep my fingers crossed for more ^^

also... th mixing pot and the syringe casts...well they will be useful...eventually...a good hobbiest never throws anything worthwhile away...

Indeed not. All the waste/scraps are being saved (I even collected up most of the waste from the silicone too as it, y'know, might be useful one day...).

Also notice that my sprue is already wood textured... to encourage it's use for things.

That's soo brilliant! Texture the sprue to make even it useful! You Sir..are a Genius!

Brilliant work, don't be so down on it dude.

A bubble at the bottom of the pan is no biggy, in fact can be used. Tiny bubbles in anything are perfectly acceptable to be honest. (have you seen a forgeworld kit!!!!) We are modellers after all and can get over these little things easy enough. The bits of box are all good to my eyes also, I could easily use them as broken open crates, or battle damaged crates. Honestly its all good.

Also I did notice before you using textured sprue in the mould and wondered a bit, and now it all makes sense. Fantastic. You are a genius.

dsteingass wrote:That's soo brilliant! Texture the sprue to make even it useful! You Sir..are a Genius!

Ha ha, Thanks Dave.

Camkierhi wrote:Brilliant work, don't be so down on it dude.

I'm not that down. It's early days and at least the mould making went well. I'm just showing the downs along with the ups (if only to show that I'm not as perfect as may seem sometimes... ).

A bubble at the bottom of the pan is no biggy, in fact can be used. Tiny bubbles in anything are perfectly acceptable to be honest. (have you seen a forgeworld kit!!!!) We are modellers after all and can get over these little things easy enough. The bits of box are all good to my eyes also, I could easily use them as broken open crates, or battle damaged crates. Honestly its all good.

The thing with the bubbles in the pans are that the bubble is in the mould and that gives a blob in place of a hole. In all the toilets there's a little blob, except for the one that has a relatively huge blob (that isn't even central). It is removable, I have done it, but it's a pain in the backside to do without damaging the bowl (and the bowl is tricky to get right, I should know ). I'm not expecting a huge demand for those toilets, so one working mould cavity is fine.

I've not actually seen any commercial resin kits in the "flesh", but I've heard/read the horror stories.
On that note (and a pleasant surprise) the mould lines are really easy to remove. Does anyone know how this stuff compares to Forgeworld stuff, for example?

Indeed, the partial bits will find uses. But I would prefer to make complete boxes...

Also I did notice before you using textured sprue in the mould and wondered a bit, and now it all makes sense. Fantastic. You are a genius.

I did wonder if anyone noticed that while I was showing the moulds. So, Now you know.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And in other news:
Even though it appears to have been shown in most of the threads I'm following I will also pimp Skalk's competition here in my humble (admittedly no longer all that small) thread.

The rules are up and there are many entrant categories that you can enter, so all entrants are likely to get a good competition and stand a chance of winning something, no matter what skill level you see yourself at. Have a look, join in and give it a go (although, wait for the competition to start first).
Skalk's Junk Pile Competition