Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Moulding the other side ... continued.

Once all the parts are back in the rubber we need introduce the concept of a mould release agent. The mould release agent will stop the new rubber we are just about to pour from sticking to the rubber we just made, without it you get a solid block of rubber with your components somewhere inside and a lot of unhappiness. However the mould release agent which is a fine spray from a can, could clog and add a texture to whatever we are going to cast, so we need to protect the components from the spray, but at the same time make sure we coat the rubber thoroughly. Time to get some blu-tac: -

Steel Legion Heads & Body with blu-tac



Steel Legion Arms & Legs with blu-tac



At this stage we used the Mould Release Agent: -



Once the mould release agent has done its job, we carefully remove all the blu-tac and raise the level of the containment around the mould, to handle the new rubber we will be about to pour into the mould.





At this stage the mould was ready to have the new rubber poured in, so back to the workroom and once again check all the equipment, get all the chemicals ready, mix the rubber, add the catalyst, pour onto the moulds, and then place the moulds into the pressure pot and pressurise to 40psi. This time I increased the catalyst to a higher ratio to decrease the casting time, so we should be done in about 3 hrs.

Here is a picture of the compressor and pressure pot, you note with safety goggles also.



I will be gone for a few hours now, I am taking my daughters to their Ballet Dancing exams, I might have my iphone with me to answer any questions

Well as normal sunday has been a busy day for me, but I finally got the chance to continue with my moulding & casting.

Last time I had just shown you the mould going in for the second half, I am pleased to say that was a success, and I pressed on with cutting the mould and adding channels for the resin to flow once under pressure, here is a picture showing the moulds with cuts for resin flow done.



I proceeded to test the cut mould and was pleased with the initial result: -



As you can see all the pieces cast correctly, and to my satisfaction, upon closer examination no more than two bubble prone areas, one in the hand and one on the rebreather. The rebreather was luckily where the pipe was meant to go, and therefore worked in my favour, and the hand was difficult to see, so I decided to live with it rather than remould. both would be fixable with a little greenstuff if it was required.

After removing the model and cleaning up the flash I could not resist assembling him to see how he turned out. I used the power cables from DragonForge Design again as they worked perfectly.

Here are the first pics of my new Steel Legion Trooper assembled and ready to be painted.

Wow, that's amazing. How much experience do you have with casting?

Genius pure utter genius i doth my cap to you sir

Fantastic work. I'd love to see some of the resources you've used to get you to that competency with casting, if indeed you have used any and not just trial and error!

Games-Workshop should honestly take notice. THIS is what the next plastic kit should be!

Just came across the thread, great work and similar things had to be addressed to an Imperial Fleet officer piece I am doing, it was really interesting seeing you tackle the same things as I. Learned a couple of tips from that alone, thanks!

The later posts on your casting adventures were very informative, appreciate the time in writing up your methods.

Quite like the alternate head, the eye patch is just right for the overall feel of that officers head.

Looking forward to your progress!

~ Tael.

Bravo, sir! Well done.

Outstanding casting tutorial. Excellent results. Perhaps you should make an article (well... use a pure GS mini or something to avoid any complications).

This may be redundant, but THAT is cool right there; very nearly would inspire me to try casting/ molding if i forgot my priorities. very awesome

Hello

I thought that you needed a vacuum chamber rather than pressure pot to do moldings?

You want to draw out air bubbles I thought?

Regardless, your job looks fantastic - love the concept and how it's worked out.

Cheers

Tim

Excellent work! You'll get a whole army done in no time.

Hell, looks even better than- No! Bad Dreadnote!

@ ph34r : I have been casting about once a year (usually a couple of moulds per project) for the last 2-3 years.

@ grey_death : Moulding and casting are dark arts, and are only passed onto an apprentice from a master ... Actually the documentation on the net is decidedly spares, especially in the area of small figure casting.

@ Shas'El Tael : Look forward to seeing the Imperial fleet officer! got any pictures I could see ?

@ anticitizen013 : I might do an article on casting one day, or better yet a video!

@ tallmantim : Pressure is better than vacuum for those on a budget, the best is using both.

@ The Dreadnote : Bad Dreadnote!

Just to make it fairly plain, I have no intention to sell these models (I have had a number of polite purchase requests via pm), they are intended to make my Steel Legion army, a customised army from its point of inception. I want something unique for myself, and as its a good 40k year already for me, I wanted to make it very special.

For those even vaguely interested in why its a special year, I was lucky enough to have my online persona make it into a Short story & Series published by Black Library. The short story book is "Heroes of the Space Marines" and I am in the story "Fires of War" on Pg 190. Brother Argos appears as the Master of the Forge for the Salamander space marine chapter and I get to help out a few times throughout the story

Anyway, back to where we are with the Steel Legion, next on my list is to finish another pair of arms and pair of legs and mould them, to offer more variety. As usual I will post my sculpting progress as we go!

Inspirational dude. You ever thought of selling the casts?

sA

thats really amazing

I could not resist trying a figure using the new parts I had made, and I wanted something sergeant like: -









Would not take much to add the Steel Legion badge on the arm and some gauntlets and we would be there

Ok this is bad ... now I am playing with Toy soldiers, next I will be making lasgun noises!

isnt the raised hand from the empire militia box?
this is pretty amazing lol, i need to start this whole casting thing for some of the daemons ive sculpted 0_o

that is soooo cool I wish I could do that

I'd figure the raised arm to be from the imperial vehicle accessory sprue, with the tank commander.

<laughs> Pew Pew Pew !!

sorry couldn't resist ...

Worked on the current set of legs last night, got 2 more stages roughly to go till they are complete, I also had a look at another pair of arms trying to work out which set next as there are only four sets with lasguns. I found one and stripped off the shoulder pads, and am working on the hand separation from the gun. At some point I also need to finalise a method for making the wire folding stock.

Pictures later tonight, today I am off to the Infosec (Information Security) show in Earls Court, London. Should be fun!

Very good,I like it!!!

First part of my Forgeworld order arrived today ... here take a look at the Vanaheim pattern gun shield for my medusa/griffon/basilisk : -



The other two items were ok, and were a demolisher turret - ryza modified style and a normal leman russ turrer also Ryza modified.

To the credit of FW they agreed to send me out another plate immediately, and also had the pleasure of telling me my Armageddon pattern medusa would be shipped as well.

I was however a little dissapointed, as the box was undamaged and well padded internally, so fundamentally it was almost certainly put in broken ...

Well apart from the forgeworld mishap, your army looks incredible!!

I also want some Ryza turrets.

BrotherArgos wrote:First part of my Forgeworld order arrived today ... here take a look at the Vanaheim pattern gun shield for my medusa/griffon/basilisk : -



The other two items were ok, and were a demolisher turret - ryza modified style and a normal leman russ turrer also Ryza modified.

To the credit of FW they agreed to send me out another plate immediately, and also had the pleasure of telling me my Armageddon pattern medusa would be shipped as well.

I was however a little dissapointed, as the box was undamaged and well padded internally, so fundamentally it was almost certainly put in broken ...

Has it been hot in your part of the world? It might have deformed in shipping...

BrotherArgos wrote:First part of my Forgeworld order arrived today ... here take a look at the Vanaheim pattern gun shield for my medusa/griffon/basilisk : -



The other two items were ok, and were a demolisher turret - ryza modified style and a normal leman russ turrer also Ryza modified.

To the credit of FW they agreed to send me out another plate immediately, and also had the pleasure of telling me my Armageddon pattern medusa would be shipped as well.

I was however a little dissapointed, as the box was undamaged and well padded internally, so fundamentally it was almost certainly put in broken ...

Hot water and some super glue will fix that one just fine with the replacement you will have 2

Anyway a few people commented that the raised hand on the sgt looked wrong, I suspected it was the grossly oversized lanyard making the arm appear weird. I have removed the lanyard and am much happier now with the way it looks, here is a before and after shot: -

Holy flying cow!

Amazing stuff!
words cannot express the amount of win here
*subscribed*

I really thought the lanyard was a great addition to a piece like that. Yeah it's a slight bit oversized, but at this scale if you want it to be more than a piece of string, it really needs to be.

@ Müller : Welcome to the log

@ grey_death : Oh your so right, If you look at the inspiration picture from the first post in this massive log, you will see a lanyard, and I SO want to do one for this guy, however it will be done to scale! So expect one sometime in the future!

Good NEWS !! I got my IG Codex, Valkyrie, Catachan & Cadian command sets and a new sentinel in the post ... YAY!!! So this evening I will be looking in some detail at those boxes and deciding if anything is going to be converted to steel legion

Not to mention trying to make a new army list!

Looks cool - I liked the lanyard too.