Forgeworld Hornets Arrive

New Arrivals

So I got a package of goodies in the mail today and quickly assembled 3 Eldar Hornets.  These are the best sculpts and best casts I have ever got.  The mold lines were minimal, there was no warpage other than a few of the gun barrels.  I have never had a Forgeworld kit go together so easily.  

Here Unassembled.

Nice little heat sealed baggies!

Now some of you might be saying, hey FW uses printed ziplock baggies.  You would be right. They also have never sent me anything this well cast.  FW has a habit of using molds well past the point at which they should have been replaced. As well as pulling casts before the model has completely cured.  These suffer from none of those issues.

Move over jetbike hoard fresh new resin from a distant land that has no IP laws has arrived.  

Neverness happens to work with me in the real world, he jokingly suggested that working in an environment where your overseers may be armed with AK-47s might contribute to the quality of the product.

Sadly the company I would like to buy these from does not respect its customers and have driven the costs of its product up while allowing the quality to suffer. When you allow this to happen you open the door to others that will offer better quality at a better price.

Size comparison against a standard Eldar Falcon

Also in the box a Revenant titan with pulsars.  It to is a very well cast kit, and shall be gracing this blog over the next few posts.

I spoke to the supplier of these kits and he is ok with me listing his contact info.  He has worked in the States and speaks English.  I got these in the mail within 10 days of paying for them.  For my order it worked out to about one third of the cost vs ordering from the UK.

If you want to find out more email wargames.discount@gmail.com and tell him that the Warfrog sent you.

Two part mold making tutorial - Resin Casting

Making the 2 part mold.

Lets make these.
























Smooth-On Oomoo 25.

This product is mixed by volume at a 1:1 ratio.  It does not have an foul odor, in my opinion.  It has a 15 minute pot life and sets up in 75 minutes.

This product does not need to be degassed or weighed, it is mixed by volume.

Making it much more user friendly.






Clay.

Bad Photos, blame the plastic wrapper that I was trying to photograph.  On the second frame the label says no sulfur, your gonna have to trust me on that.  I would recommend if possible by a natural colored clay instead of blue or whatever.  The color is a pain in the ass to clean out of skin, tools, and clothing.

You have to use sulfur free clay so that it does not mess up your mixed silicon.














Mold boxes.

This step will take longer than it most would people think it would, take your time and do it right.  Using a sulfur free clay, build up a layer of clay to around half way up the original.  Make sure to leave no gaps and not get the clay on the top half of the original.  Build your mold on a flat portable surface, I used a piece of 1/8 inch thick plastic card.  I also Use Legos for the walls of the mold box.  Where you stop with the clay will be the mold line, you want to be aware of this so that you can minimize mold lines in you detailed areas.  Leave plenty of room on all sides of the original, so that the mold halves maintains strength.

Adding vent channels.

At the bottom of the photo you can see the end of a syringe that I use as a pour gate for resin, the white plastic rods were added to make channels for air to escape when pouring the resin.

The holes in the clay will form registry keys that will help to keep the halves lined up properly.













Math Hell.
If you are still with me this far along, then I am going to assume that you can read and have a basic understanding of the MATHs.  At this point you need to figure out how much silicon to make.  So some basic calculations of volume are going to be needed, along with at least one graduated container.  So my two boxes had interior measurements of 6.5 cm 9.5cm x 1.5cm  &  6.5 cm 11.25cm x 1.5cm, giving me two volumes 92.625cc & 110cc.  Total volume needed approximately 202.3cc minus the filler(scroll down) and volume of the original to be cast.
This is America here but metric is so much better for things like this (everything really).


Two Compounds One Cup.

I use clear throw away drink cups, using the graduated container measure out 100cc of water and pour into the cup.  Mark a line with a sharpie  at the water line.  Now pour another 100cc of water in and mark the next line.  Make sure the cup is completely dry  I put tape over my lines so that the mark would not rub off.







Mix it up.
Follow the manufacturers instructions on mixing the A&B sides of the silicon.  I keep two labeled large paint stir sticks like from Lowe's and two measuring cups one for each bucket with my gear. After stirring I add the thinner of the two to the cup up to the first mark, then add the other side up to the second mark.

Stir with a third stick until the color is even, you need to stir this and pour the silicon in around 5 or so minutes you have a work time of 15 minutes total.

Left over silicon.

Left over silicon can be cut into small bits and added to a new mold pour. Keep it to small amounts added after the first part of the pour.  When the resin has coated the clay floor and original.

Keep and failed molds and left overs for this reason.








Poured Silicon.

Start pouring in the most empty corner of the mold box and allow the silicon to flow by itself throughout the mold box.  That will help to ensure complete detail capture.




In this photo you can see the air bubbles caused by mixing and pouring rising up and popping leave them alone and let the silicon do its thing.  Gently shaking, tapping, or even vibrating the mold will make this go faster.


(You can buy a professional vibrator for this, please post pics of it delivered to your door step if you do.)
The manufacturer says 75 minutes to cure, I recommend pouring the first half and between 2-4 hours.  Let it really set up and cure well before the next steps.

Remove the walls.

Remove the walls of the mold.













Remove the clay

Remove the clay, notice how the blue stains the plastic card.  Buy a natural unstained shade if possible.


Make sure to get all the little flecks and pieces.  Try not to remove the master from the mold silicon.



Prep for 2nd pour

You must apply a rubber to rubber mold release agent to all of the silicon, be extra careful not to get any on the master being copied.  Use a old paint brush for this.

Ready to pour the other side.

Rebuild the mold box, mix & pour your silicon.

2-4 hours later.

Gently pry the 2 halves apart.  You will have to clean out the pour channels and venting sprue gates.  Use a very sharp knife and possibly a good quality sprue cutter.

Give the mold at least 8 more hours to fully cure before you start pouring resin in it, yeah the manufacturer says its ready but do your self a favor and wait.

Project Compendium Chapterhouse Wheeled Chimera

This is a compilation of the WiP posts for the resin wheeled chimera conversion kit sold by Chapterhouse Studios.

Here is a walkthrough and review of the kit.

Parts and needed tools.

It does not fit together, at all.  If you do not have a dremel tool, good razor saw and files this kit is not for you. If you have not worked with resin kits before and do not have patience skip this one.






I spoke to the CAD designer of this kit about these issues on the DakkaDakka forums he frequents.  He told me this.

"The kit was designed with the older chimera sprues in mind, so when GW made the change to the new sprues there were some issues with assembling it. The angles of some of the Chimera hulls pieces are very subtly different. This has to do with the draft angles GW uses... draft angles are the slight angle applied to a model so that its easier to remove the plastic sprue from its stainless steel injection mold. The old chimera kit of the 90s was made with an older technology and so some the angles were more extreme while the newer kit could get away with shallower draft angles. 

This reality compounded with some slight inaccuracies in the 3D printied parts conversion into a master resulted in the 1st generation models not fitting with the new kits. Nick over at CHS, told me that after the first run, he had the masters corrected... so from what I know the second gen castings should work with the modern Chimera."

The areas in black sharpie on the side panels is material that I had to remove for this kit to begin to fit together.

In this photo you can see the saw being held flush to the side while cutting the excess material away.

Here is a photo from the other angle, you can see that you will be leaving a small amount of resin less than 1/8th inch thick.

Now the sides fit the plastic box and we can get to the gaps that need to be filled.

After My first WiP post Nick (the man behind Chapterhouse Studios) commented on my post.



"The reason why you had to make so many cuts is because you modified how the sides fit on the center hull. The kit should have fit fine if you used the existing cuts, but you wanted to move the side hulls lower in relation to the center hull.
It also looks like you moved the center hull forward relative to where it fits normally on our kit.

Do you have any photos of how it fit before you tried to modify the resin pieces? Looks like you did many cuts to modify how you wanted the kit to fit and that was a PITA (as is cutting resin).

Send nick@chapterhousestudios.com an email asking how it should fit to save yourself some trouble if you have questions."

To the left is a picture from Chapterhouse's website of one they painted up, you can see the misalignment next to the heavy bolter.  While talking to the designer he indicated that this is incorrect.  If you assemble the kit with out modifications listed above you will end a misaligned kit like the one shown at the left.
My reply to Nick:
"To answer Nick @ Chapterhouse (thanks btw) I aligned the side panels using the angles on the plastic chassis and the rear door as seen in these 2 photos.  Had I used the existing register keys on the resin kit the side panels would have been shifted up about an 1/8 of an inch resulting in a gross mismatch and a bad looking kit."

I added a small strip of plastic to the bottom front of the chassis to bring the bottom of the hull in-line with the side panels and to give me an hard line to bring the filler up to.  Other than the gaps visible in pt1 this is the other major area to work on. this is a result of the original sculpt not having the right angle to line up with the plastic chassis.  A problem but not bad considering its a resin/plastic hybrid made by 2 different companies (also the front bumper piece will cover much of this up).

I was going to fill the front gap with GS but changed my mind and went with a thin band of plastic card. so that I could have a smooth finish.  In the left hand corner of this photo you can see some GS building up the edge of the vehicle.  Once I got the GS sanded level with the plastic chassis it began to peel away b/c it was so thin.  I had to use a different method to fill this area and build it up to a proper flat panel.  I used Baking soda and super glue to fill it.






For those that are unfamiliar with the method, Baking soda is a super glue accelerant and filler. Pack the gap level with baking soda and add a drop or two of thin super glue, it will set nearly instantly and be nearly transparent. It is actually over the GS in the above pic.

I am changing the front end a little bit, the bottom half will be set at a slightly different angle using another band of plastic card and then it is ready for the bumper.

Speaking of the bumper, this is the only piece to have any bubbles or voids (seen in black sharpie) and they are small & easy to fix.    Far better quality control on the casting side than Forgeworld, Finecast, or most other resin companies I have used.

Almost finished, front panels have all been sanded and blended.  Once again this was done with greenstuff for the deep gaps and superglue & baking soda for the very shallow voids. Then wet sanded with 400 grit sandpaper.

I have decided to remove most of the rivets, and at least prime it in a very nice shade of gray.  

Front panel before filling and sanding.

Front panel after sanding.

Primed and Ready to Go

You can see that the panels now line up (I also removed most of the rivets), compared to the CHS picture showing the panel misalignment.

Buyer Reviews / Chapterhouse Studios Farseer/Warlock on jetbike

As a retail business owner and an avid hobbyist I often find myself looking for other buyer reviews before buying from webstores. I thought I would start a series of reviews on the webstores I have purchased from and the products I have bought. I hope this is helpful to you all.

This time Chapterhouse Studios again, I wanted to get the Farseer and Warlock jetbike conversion kit.

If you look you will see that the Spear on the bottom left sprue is broken, a replacement was included in the package.  It was nice to see that the company caught a miscast and included the needed parts in the pack without a need for the end buyer to complain.  Forgeworld and Failcast should take note of this level of attention to detail.

Again Chapterhouse was great to work with the sculpts and quality of the casts were great as well.
A+

Buyer Reviews / Chapterhouse Studios Lashwhips

As a retail business owner and an avid hobbyist I often find myself looking for other buyer reviews before buying from webstores. I thought I would start a series of reviews on the webstores I have purchased from and the products I have bought. I hope this is helpful to you all.

This time Chapterhouse Studios again, I wanted to get the Tyranid lashwhip kit.

These look great, but the size is way off in my opinion, so much so that for me they are unusable.

Once again Chapterhouse Studios was great to work with, but I cannot recommend this product.

Buyer Reviews / Paulson Games Alien Parts

As a retail business owner and an avid hobbyist I often find myself looking for other buyer reviews before buying from webstores. I thought I would start a series of reviews on the webstores I have purchased from and the products I have bought. I hope this is helpful to you all.

This time Paulson Games, I found these while looking for Tyranid upgrade options.

Eye Candy first:

Hive tyrant sized bonesword, compared to current ed. bonesword shown with cut down tyranid arms to be mounted onto.

Lash Whips compared to current ed. tyrant whip.  The top two arms are MC sized arms the third is from a warrior kit. These whips are made to be bent to shape, either place them in hot water (not boiling) and bend to shape or use a hair dryer to warm them.

Warrior sized boneswords. shown with arms from the warrrior kit and the rending claws from the same kit.

A few things to know, these are labeled as alien parts so a carzy company with even crazier IP lawyers don't go totally nuts.  Also I suspect the seller does not have pictures of the product on said crazy companies finished models to avoid any need for the IP gestapo to be kicking down the front door.

Paulson Games was outstanding to deal with, the product arrived quickly.  The quality of the sculpt is fantastic and the resin cast quality is also top notch. A+ all around
If you are a Tyranid player go now and order some of these.

Chapterhouse wheeled chimera pt 4

COMPLETED PROJECT SUMMARY HERE

Base coat of primer and many rivets have been removed.  I am very happy with the finished product on this kit.  Stay tuned for my next post, it is not gaming related but promises much awesomeness.

Just a little hint.

Chapterhouse wheeled chimera pt 3

  COMPLETED PROJECT SUMMARY HERE

Almost finished, front panels have all been sanded and blended.  Once again this was done with greenstuff for the deep gaps and superglue & baking soda for the very shallow voids. Then wet sanded with 400 grit sandpaper.

I have decided to remove most of the rivets, and at least prime it in a very nice shade of gray.  So that it is both painted and capable of annoying Corey at the same time.

Front panel before filling and sanding.

Front panel after sanding.