Veterans under construction

It's been an odd week or so, but I have managed to get the first of my veteran squads constructed. They're made from GW Cadians, with heads and backpacks from Pig Iron. The heads fit pretty well, though I have drilled and pinned them to the bodies. The packs were a bit more awkward - I trimmed the little block off the back of the Cadians' torso, and joined the pieces together with a superglue-greenstuff-superglue sandwich. Seems pretty solid. I'm still not 100% happy with the heavy bolter loader's left arm; it may be removed and replaced. Still, that's one half of my Kill Team for the club tournament starting in September.

I also finished the hack-job on their Chimera; I have moved the turret backwards about an inch. Which left me with a hole where a hatch should go; I looked through the bits box, but I seem to be pretty much out. I have been using my spares on the KV2/Ragnarok tanks, which has left me short. Okay, we can fix this; one RTV rubber mould made, several grams of resin mixed, one never-ending supply of hatches created. It's pretty indistinguishable once you have primed the lot, which is the stage I have reached now.

I have also started to put together another building - this is the 'Bell Tower of Lost Souls' - I have still got to add a bell, but you get the idea. This time it's a 6"x6" base; if you look back through the blog to find my terrain mat, you can see where it's intended to go. The pencilling on the base is to let me line up the paving slabs, which is the next job.

And finally, a Land Raider I've been playing with for a while. It was an Ebay purchase, very cheap (about £8 including p&p), and came with quite a mess in places, especially the sides. I constructed coffin sponsons from plastic card and attached what was left of the lascannons to them; it's not perfect but it's more acceptable than it was. I still need to paint the heraldry - a big Dark Angel winged sword across the hull, and the symbols on the sponsons - but it's basically there.

Oh yes, my Chaos are a Fallen army - I started painting DAs under Rogue Trader when they were black, and when I got back into the game, I just stuck with it.

Not a bad haul for a week and a half, really...

Wildebeest completed

Woo hoo! I managed to get the paints out last night after work, and this is the result. Wheels by Brigade Models, machineguns by Battlefront, hull by me!

Again, painted sand and granite, washed with devlan mud, drybrushed sand. Quick and easy, and I'm really pleased with the way they have turned out; I have another four assembled waiting for their paint jobs; I am tempted to give one of them a searchlight rather than a machine gun and make an ambulance. Then I must get on with the job of making some turrets to create an IFV version.

I know that they have cost me far more than I would have paid to buy four APCs from a 'real' manufacturer, but I am so pleased to have my own unique models that I don't care. There's something really satisfying about working through a model from start to finish.

Twenty-six grams

Well, this resin casting lark is a piece of cake - I can't see what I was ever worried about. ;)

I have started casting myself some of the APCs, but first things first. I was as careful as I could be while I removed the master from the mould, but I still managed to tear a small section. I think there was a fine gap between the hull and the plastic card base, and this allowed a small amount of rubber to get into that space. When I lifted the master out, it tore a tiny section of the mould out as well, so one of the axle stubs has a flaw beside it - indicated by the knife-blade.



Anyway, I cleaned up the mould, removing the wax and generally tidying up the edges, and then I tried a casting.

I measured the size of the void I wanted to fill, and I mixed up a little resin. A very little resin. Twenty-two grams of resin, to be precise. Fortunately I went and got a set of electronic scales from Tesco at the weekend, so I can get this accurately mixed up. I mixed, I poured, I realised that twenty-two grams may be precise, but it's precisely wrong. It's slightly shallow, but probably usable... or maybe I'll just keep it for posterity.


Anyway, since then I have cast another four APCs; twenty-six grams of resin is the correct amount to fill the mould and have just enough resin left over to make the hatch. It takes about 15-20 minutes to mix and pour the resin, wait for it to bloom and cool, remove it from the mould and clean up for another run. Not bad... and they are all small and solid enough that I don't have any problems with warping and flexing.

Final stage - attach some wheels to the hulls...


I have to say that I'm well chuffed with the way this has come out.

Making the mould...

And this is where it gets scary - making a mould from my lovingly-crafted master. I have stuck the masters to a piece of plastic card; my assumption is that I want a flat surface so that when I have poured the resin, I can run a blade across the top while it's still wet to ensure I have a flat bottom and minimal sanding after removal. I hope.


I popped the plastic card into a lego frame, and filled the gaps around the edge with wax. Then sprayed with mould release.


And mix and pour the RTV101 rubber from Tiranti. I am slightly worried about the number of bubbles surfacing, but I have knocked, tapped and jogged it as much as I can to try to get them all to surface. I will pop it out of the mould tomorrow... watch this space :)