Misc: Moulding & Casting, cont.

My erdpfahl. Far from perfect, but passable... I hope?

I'm kind of getting ahead of myself here, starting with the above image of numerous erdpfahl, or stakes, and other bits and bobs. But they are the item I first had a yen to scratch-built and cast in resin, thereby launching this whole moulding and casting saga.

I did a lot of mould-making and quite a bit of casting after the episodes I've blogged already. And I'm not showing all of them. One thing I did was cut the big mould which contained ammo boxes and shells down into two smaller moulds. And in turn I then further cut these moulds in two, adding more pouring and venting channels. The improved results, pictured below, show that this was a better idea than simply chucking the mould out.

Much better results from modified moulds.

The largest group, at the top, are best.

In the image above, I've cleaned up the castings from the modified moulds, and 75% or thereabouts are great. There's one iffy one, and one outright dodgy/unusable one per item: spent shell, live round, and ammo box.

Next up I decided to revisit copying some wheels. But this time in sets of four, and with properly laid out pouring and venting channels. Would this extra effort produce better results? Indeed, would it yield usable items?

Sets of better prepared wheels, ready to be moulded.

Wheel moulds in progress, plus another single erdpfahl mould.

Once all the new moulds were made I get the whole lot ready for a potential complete casting session (not, alas, of the Hollywood starlet variety). And here they all are. A good little set, quantity wise, even if not quality wise. One issue however, is that the resin I'm using cures so quickly I can't really cast a whole set as big as this lot. If I try to, the resin is already going off before I've done all the pouring.

Lots of luvverly blue moulds...

Before I move on to the final chapter in this saga, for the time being at least. Here are a couple of pics of some of the multiple little gubbins that I made for the 88s, this time cast in several sub-sets, as opposed to the over-filled single mould attempt I made earlier on. As can be seen in the upper of the two images below, I usually try and do a few other little moulds as well, to use up all the resin I've mixed.

Casting the 'multiple gubbins' moulds.

The results of splitting stuff up speak for themselves, I think

As the lower pic above shows, pretty clearly, breaking the over-filled mould grouping into smaller sub-sets paid off. Air flows far more freely through the admittedly still tiny passages, and the items are, as a result, far more likely to cast properly. The wheel on its own and a tiny erdpfahl, nigh on invisible below the wheel, were the only successes out of the several other smaller moulds in the upper of the two pics above.

After the steps shown just above, I moved on to a more mass production casting stage, and the results are shown immediately below. Including one set each of the new tyre casts. The latter aren't perfect. But I think they are usable. I'll be doing this with a few wheel sets. Primarily on account of Chester, our new cat/kitten, waging a pretty successful war on my mini-Wehrmacht forces. I have artillery, cars, trucks and even tanks needing various bits - mostly wheels - replacing. I had to move my whole modelling workspace upstairs out of the lounge on his account. The little devil! 

Once I got a stockpile going, I started to feel reasonably pleased.

Bagged up, sorted into groups for specific jobs.

And so it finally came time to add some of this stuff to a few of the models for which they've been produced. The moment of truth, I suppose! I started with the Hasegawa 88s, both of which needed erdpfahl, linkages, and handles. I've done one as if just deployed, before being staked, and the other with the stakes going through the arms/legs, whatever they are, ready to fire.

A Hasegawa 88with added stakes (stowed), linkages and handles.

Stakes deployed, and ammo and boxes added to the scene.

This is the Airfix 88, with stakes deployed, linkages, and (not visible) handles.

Another view of an Hasegawa 88, with stowed stakes, plus ammo stuff.

I've gone to great effort, considerable expense, and produced some not too great parts, that most folk probably won't even notice. Yay! That's the life for me. And, I think, quite typical model-making behavious, from what I see elsewhere. But I've had a lot of fun, and learned a fair bit. I think for my next attempts at mechanical reproduction, I'll try another and much cheaper technique. But before I get to that point, I think I need to paint these 88mm guns. And perhaps even base them?

Misc: The Saga Slows Down...

Newly arranged sub groupings start to take shape.

Ok, so here I am, on Tuesday, having separated all the 88mm stuff into four groups last night. And made three sprues up. I've endeavoured to make the casting and venting pipes, the ingress of resin and the air egress, bigger. Hopefully on my next casting session, the resin will reach all the nooks and crannies.

All four sub-groups, on their own sprues; larger casting and venting 'pipes'.

With all four groups 'sprued up', it was time to make the silicone pouring forms. I took a tip from some of the online videos I've seen, and made the foam-card forms two-part. As a one-part arrangement, previously, it was very tricky trying to work in such a tiny confined space. This method allows one to work on the bottom half first, embedding your objects and levelling your plasticene, etc. And then you put the top part on to pour the first silicone part of the mould.  

Working on creating two-part forms for moulding.

The final pic, below, shows all the lower halves, filled with plasticene, awaiting the trimming of the casting and venting sprues and the embedding of the parts. I did this around lunchtime today. And I'll probably come back and add to this post later, once I've got the objects embedded, and the other halves of the forms in place.

At that point, it'll be time to add mould release - I'll add more, and be more scrupulous about it - and mix and pour another batch of silicone. I desperately hope that this time I succeed! 

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Lubed up, forms built... ready for the pouring.

Some considerable time later the same day: I lubed the moulds with vaseline - and not mould release (that's for the second silicone pour, and not for using on the plasticene... I discovered!) - super-glued the top parts of the forms in place, and poured part one of each two-part mould. Those two steps looking as illustrated in the two pics, just above and below.

And there they are. Now comes the waiting...

I guess-timated the quantity of silicone I'd need, at half as much as I'd used on my previous attempt. And, somewhat miraculously, that proved to the perfect amount... phew!!!

Misc: the Saga Takes an Unfortunate Twist

Casualties of war... a load of busted micro-drills.

Oh dear... oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. 

My first moulding and casting experiment has been pretty disastrous. The casts were, with one iffy-ish exception - ironically the duff old erdpfahl (see two pics down from here) - appalling. I think this was caused by several factors. The chief one being crap mould design. I tried to pack too much into one mould, and I didnt go about the mould design and construction carefully or cleverly enough.

More casualties of war... first resin castings, a dizzzaster!

Sadly this means my two bigger moulds are most likely costly junk. Certainly the ammo mould doesn't work, as witness the above picture; contrast the part to be cast, bottom, with the casting itself, above/middle. I've yet to try casting the multi-part 88mm gubbins mould. But the second half of that cured in such a way that prising them apart was all but impossible, despite my use of the mould-release liquid that came in the casting set. So the mould is likely to be both damaged, as well as being crap to start with! I will cast with it, at some point. But I don't have high hopes for the results.

All the bits I cast: only the erdpfahl is tolerably ok.

One thing to come out of all this is a substantial re-design of the 88mm sundries, as can be seen in my next post. I've unpacked all the various bits, and wound up with four sub-groups. I've also taken more care with the forms, adding bigger and more plentiful pouring and venting openings. I'm hoping with better care and diligence this next time, I can get better results.

Misc: The Postman Sometimes Rings Twice...

Oooh... exciting!

I'd wanted to title this post 'The Postman Always Sometimes Rings Twice', but I couldn't find a way to get the crossed out text in the title of my post. Hey-ho, never mind. Sooo...

Phwoarrr!!!

A couple of days ago I ordered a few models from Hannants, all German WWII, all 1/72, and all of which, I guess, come under the soft-skin/rear-echelon banner: three trucks and a car. These arrived, very well-packaged, this morning.

Chester enjoys the empty box... bless him!

Chester, our new* and still very young kitten, was almost as excited about this as me. Only, rather like Eeyore, in that touching Winnie the Pooh tale, where he gets a burst ballon and an empty honey pot, Chester was more interested in the empty honey pot than the contents!

* Tigger, our super-fluffy moggins, and occasional star of a post or two online, perhaps even on here, alas, passed away earlier this year.

I'm looking for'ard to building these babies.

Whilst I won't be starting in on any of these new arrivals today, I will be continuing to work in detailing my 88s. I refined some of the parts today, sanding, filing, paring back, shaping, etc. I've also constructed a form for my first resin-casting silicone mould. Today I'm planning to pour the first half of said mould. 

Yesterday I used a hot glue gun for the first time, which was interesting. I think the big bag of glue-sticks I have are poss' meant for a different glue gun, as they seem too thin, and don't feed through the gun properly when I pull the trigger... which is annoying!

I bought some foam card from a shop in Peterborough.

And mixed some plasticene, to set the parts into.

The good, the bad and the ugly...

In the above photograph, the three items in the upper left are rejects: a malformed brass shell, ditto the crappy wobbly-holed erdpfahl, and an ammo box lid that melted into a near shapeless blob. The other bits have been improved, and, bar the wicker ammo box and lid - which need a little more detailing - are ready for moulding. 

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Ready for moulding? Hmmm... infamous last words. It's now several hours later, and I'm hardly much further on. I used a technique of mixing Milliput with water until it's so dilute you can paint with it. I then loaded the wire 'wicker' several times. The idea being that whereas before it was full of air, in the voids or interstices between wires, it should now still have the woven texture, but hopefully won't trap any silicone, when I pour the mould.

Re-shaped shell, detailed wicker ammo box and lid, etc.

I also decided, on referring to images of real 88mm ammo, that my live shell needed reworking. That was super-fiddly and took ages. I think I need a mini-lathe of some description, so I can make parts like this more easily. My original version took the Hasegawa ammo as it's starting point, which is much more 'stepped' than the real thing. A strap and buckle on the lid and wicker ammo box completes my pre-moulding prep.

I'm having a break now, and thinking about how on earth I'm going to embed and lay out these tiny ultra-delicate parts. Even though I'm getting next to nothing done, it's quite intense work! I feel drained... 

A bizarre looking little kit!?

And to finish this miscellany type post, the above image shows a strange looking little kit from a range of 1/72 kits I'm intrigued to try out. These kits are currently available very cheap at the Tank Museum's online shop (click here to have a look). It was whilst watching one of curator Davis Willey's back garden based Q&As that I was reminded of these oddities - I'd encountered them before online - as he had one on his table, amidst sundry stuff he's trying to help the museum shop flog. 

Misc: Detailing my 88s...

My collection of scratch-built bits for resin casting nears completion....

Here's where I was at around midday today, having added a three shell wicker ammo-box (inc. lid), a single shell metal canister, and a spent round. These are in addition to the carriage mounts, erdpfahl (the trefoil perforated stakes), a winding handle, and a linkage for the folding legs, that I'd already made earlier.

Making the live shell - the only new element in the second pic, below - took ages. First I tried sculpting sprue using a Dremel style hobby tool. But this span too fast, even wound down to its slowest speed, causing the sprue to overheat and snap. I then tried working with brass. Not having any brass rod, I hacksawed a strip off a piece of brass sheet. I then span that in the drill to round it down. This also overheated and snapped off, long before it had gotten properly shell-shaped.

And bingo... all the sundry elements I'm intending to cast.

So, after numerous failed attempts, I reverted to searching out bits of sprue of roughly the right diameter, that might be viable for the different segments: base, propellant case and warhead. I wound up gluing three different diameter bits of sprue together, which, with some minimal profile shaping, finally gave me a shell I was happy-ish with. 

I think I'll make an initial mould and cast several sets, and then perhaps I'll make a second mould with a proper complement of items; two carriage mounts, four stakes, x ammo boxes and shells, etc. Or maybe the first mould will suffice? I guess I'll see which way the wind blows when the time comes...

Misc: Scratch-Building Details for 88mm Guns

Making fins for the erdpfahl.

I'm really enjoying learning about the 88mm guns of Germany's WWII arsenal, and building a few models of them. I've decided to take my first steps into casting resin parts. Today I started making several small bits and bobs with a view to moulding them. First, my beloved erdpfahl, and then the carriage-hooks that support the gun between the two bogies. 

As can be seen, above, I tried two sets of erdpfahl, or stakes. The first, on the left, were pretty poor. The second, at right, were more satisfactory. I used the wire mesh to space a series of five pin-prick locator marks, made with my DIY pointy tool. I then drilled through these with a 0.5mm drill bit. Despite it being pretty poor, I put the first one together anyway, as pictured below. This revealed that the 'wings', or fins, needed trimming down, which I've started to do to the second set, as yet unassembled.

Refining the second set of stakes.

Below, the two erdpfahl, along with a wing or fin template. Upper is the less successful of the two. The lower is the better one. The central core is yet to be sized/shaped. I turned the cruciform base upside-down, so as to compare them with the ones integral to the Zvezda 88mm.

Erdpfahl #1 and #2, and the fin template, alongside the Zvezda example.

Next up, I started on a pair of the mounting hooks. The plan will be to make sets of four stakes, and two pairs of these hook mounts, a few other bits and pieces, such as a couple of crank-handles, linkages (for the folding arms or legs, or whatever they are), and numerous ammo boxes and shells, etc. Once I have a full complement of these oddments, I'll make a master mould, so I can cast complete sets in one pass.

Making a pair of scratch-built carriage mount hooks.

I'm keen to find or make some decent crews as well. I'm not too keen on any of the figure sets I've seen so far. I'm thinking crews in overalls/boiler suits, crews in shorts, crews with braces but no shirts, etc. The sort of stuff you see in many wartime photographs. I've wanted to sculpt some wargaming figures pretty much all my life. I've even tried a few times, albeit never very successfully. So this next step is something I'm both excited and anxious about...

Misc: Model Mag Haul

Recently picked this lot up, free.

Approx' 40 mags, of which half are Airfix Model World.

 I do love Freecycle. I'm a member of two local groups; one for Cambridge, and the other Fenland. The former is very active, the latter a lot less so. Nonetheless, I just picked up a load of modelling magazines - 40-ish, mostly Airfix Model World and Tamiya Model Mag' International - from someone on the Fenland group.

I'm not sure how many of these I'll keep (nor what I'll do with any I don't keep). But a cursory flick through all of the non-Tamiya titles has revealed numerous articles of interest, sometimes directly - a 1/35 Maultier Ambulance build will aid my 1/72 Opel Ambulance, re interior detailing - and sometimes simply in broader technique terms, as for example general painting/weathering methods, and suchlike.

This 1/35 build by Kev Smith might help me...

... with the interior of my Opel Blitz Ambulance.

Some really helpful visual ref'.

The Tamiya titles, only one of which I've glanced through thus far, seem less likely to be of direct use, as my main scale is 1/72. That said, I do have a few 1/35 kits, including some Tamiya stuff - an 88mm, for example! - so I'll look through them all at some point soon as well. There are also a few aircraft themed titles. Again, of less interest to me, as I'm mostly a land warfare modeller. But that said, I have amassed a pretty large stash of 1/72 WWII German aircraft, and even a few items outside that favoured niche area/scale.

Having thumbed though a good three-quarters of these mags already, one thing very apparent to me is the bewildering array - mind-numbing, perhaps? - of material on offer. The kits themselves, and the humongous amount of ancillary stuff, from the paints and modelling equipment to aftermarket detailing stuff, and decals, to all the reference resources, books, museums, shows, etc. It's amazing! 

In the same issue as the Maultier, there's this 1/76 oddity...

... a captured British armoured staff car/mobile office.

Another thing that constantly astounds and sometimes even bemuses me is the degree of obsessional interest in detail. Very few of the featured builds in these magazines are simple straight out of the box affairs. Most of mine, by contrast, start that way. Adding detail and modifying kits is something I do do, of course. And I'd say it's one of the aspects of this hobby that's potentially the most fun. But it's also an area where the 'anorak'-ish aspect of the hobby can sometimes make me feel ill at ease, most especially at shows or club events where it can become an unattractive form of point-scoring display (rivet counting, I've heard it called).

Having said this, the upside of this obsessional aspect of the way so many of us engage in these hobbies is the abundance of information, which grows continuously, both in print, online, and elsewhere. In case anyone hadn't noticed I've been getting into WWII German 88mm Flak guns recently, and what started as simple out of the box pleasure is evolving into obsessive researching and a desire for a bigger collection of models of this interesting weapon.

Kit Build/Review: Hasegawa 1/72 Flak 18

I do love my 88mm guns! Here's my second by Hasegawa, only this time the 18, not the 36, and my fourth 88mm Flak gun. Whereas the others all had their protective shields, this one is without that feature, as indeed many were. I've also modified one of the wire reels, to show it empty. I did want to have some wire on it, but was unable to stretch any sprues to the right length or thin-ness.

I'm getting into a habit of laying out all parts in groups, for clean up.

Ordered 100 Swann Morton 10A scapel blades. The best!

I noticed in this second build a mistake I'd made on the other Hasegawa gun. But it's only minor - to do with the cruciform gun mount legs/supports (feet?) - and can most probably be easily corrected. I also noted that whilst most of the design of this model is pretty good, one or two steps are s little unclear in the instructions. And some parts could be made to fit better. An example of the latter is the way too large holes for the two levelling wheels on the gun base, which kind of float in a void, until the glue sets.

Here are all my other 88s.

What... no progress? Well, actually this is over an hour later, after all the clean-up.

My obsession with the erdpfahl, or stakes, has made me realise that that's what the two sledgehammers on one of the bogeys are for. Strangely, the two folding limbs of the base have the 'female' holes into which the erdpfahl are driven, in very low relief. But they're not depicted on the fore/aft axis. Bizarre! When time allows I'll be casting some in resin, to further detail all but the Zvezda 88, which actually has them.

The real fun begins...

Bogey number one is done.

Bogey number two (titter...).

The gun itself; upside down to protect those still-gluing delicate little hand-wheels.

Thar' she blows... Note one empty cable reel.

I've another 1/76 Airfix 88 to build, plus bogeys. Think I'll probably do that afore I decide on painting and marking schemes. Plus there's the prospect of some resin casting for extra details, such as erdpfahl and ammo/ammo containers, etc. 

Build wise, it's good to be getting back into modelling. I must confess I'd prefer there to be less clean up time, a stage I find pretty tedious. Review wise, I rate these Hasegawa as both fun to build and decent models of the weapon. A lot of the detail one would hope for is present, such as the fuse setter, sextant, and even the bell (and wiring) on the left side of the gun mount. Zvezda's Flak 36 may have more and better detail. But it doesn't have the bogeys, which is a real shame.