Wednesday Workbench 01 June 2022

 

The airbrush cleaning is almost done - two fully cleaned and re-assembled, one with a few bits that still need cleaning. I might need to replace the needle in my 0.3mm smaller one - I think I must have hit the tip with something.

On the 3D prinitng front, I seem to have resolved the big problem I was having. It seems the cause was a combination of vibrations (reduced by using foam inserts from figure trays under the feet; also by tightening up some of the bolts on the printer's frame) and a couple of settings in the slicer software.

I spotted this afternoon that my first filament spool was running low so I printed a few batches of small items that I'm going to need for a big project. I had just enough for that:

After removing the remaining filament, I did a little bit of maintenance on the printer, then loaded up a new spool of filament - I went with purple. The first job was to run a couple of quick calibration tests, and settings test that I'd forgotten to do on Monday:

Anticlockwise from left: Temperature tower; calibration cube; "All In One Nano Test"; the supports test

Supports test after removing supports

It seems that I have got my support settings dialed in just about right. The supports came away easily enough with pliers and left clean surfaces with no evidence of sagging.

Yesterday I ran a test-print of a part for the big project I mentioned further up:

There were a couple of issues with it - the problem I mentioned above and also that the "bridging" over the recess was a bit messy. I've found a slicer setting that should resolve the latter and will test that tomorrow - if that doesn't work, I'll just have to add supports for the bridge.

Challenge Day 72 - Stuff and Nonsense

First and foremost, the 6mm ACW Union cavalry are finished, submitted and already up on the Challenge blog.


So, having cleared those off the paint table, I decided it was time to play.

But before I tell you about that, I received some goodies in today's post:

6mm ACW flag sheets from Baccus (I was almost out of the Union national and regimental flags, and decided to pick up some extras for both Union and CSA) and replacements from Pendraken for the two paints which went missing in the mail.

To return to play time, here's what my painting table looked like this afternoon:

Yes, it was time to have a play with the airbrush I'd bought last June. It's a cheap, crappy single action brush with a 0.4mm needle; the compressor is also pretty crap - 3 pre-set pressures, the max being 15psi. Still, it's OK for learning basic technique and probably for doing rough work like priming.

I'd avoided playing with the brush for so long because of the ventilation issues. I'd been meaning to get myself a portable spray booth for months and finally ordered and received this one a couple of weeks ago. It does have ducting so that you can vent the exhaust out of a window, but as I'm not using any solvents or toxic paints I'm using it without.

First job was to have a play painting spots and lines onto a sheet of white paper. Sensibly I chose to use the black paint for that! It did give me a good idea of which pressure settings and distances to use for different effects.

Then I took a bunch of 60x60 MDF bases and primed them; 4 each of German Dark Yellow, Hull Red and UK Bronze Green.

After cleaning the brush and letting the primer dry, it was time for the next bit of play. This was a dual-result game - testing different colours on the primers and also seeing if my idea of using wire mesh as a mask for airbrushing camo might work.

Top to bottom - hull red, bronze green, dunkelgelb; Left to right - black green, light green, hull red, panzer dark grey, golden brown

 On dark yellow primer:

Clockwise from top left: light green, hull red, panzer dark grey, black green

 On bronze green primer:

Light green, hull red, panzer dark grey, golden brown

 On hull red primer:

Light green, golden brown, panzer dark grey, black green

This tells me a few things:

1. Most colours work OK on the dunkelgelb primer (even the golden brown gives a subtle difference, not shown here) and the hull red primer.
2. To show up on bronze green primer, the colours need to be quite light.
3. The mesh masks could be useful for camo effects, but probably would work best as a mask for "striping" or patches rather than all over.
4. The best meshes seem to be the dots (top left) and the larger diamonds (bottom right).

In case you hadn't guessed, the camo tests are for the hover tanks and APCs. I think I know what colours I'll use on them - you'll have to wait and see for yourselves.

I'll leave you with a pic of the spray booth at the end of the session: