If anyone is still checking this blog, I will be updating it again in the next day or two with some new content.

Work has been hectic the last couple of months and my 6mm website has moved hosting companies twice, casuing me a bit of hassle trying to locate all the images and pages.

On the 6mm terrain front, I have been finishing off some extras for the walls I made earlier and I have started on a African building range.  More pictures and info soon.

Cheers

Kieran

This blog is a slight diversion from my sculpting of 6mm (1/300th) terrain. I’ve been thinking about ways to paint/model canopies since a discussion with my air gaming buddies the other week and I still haven’t found a painting technique that I like that much.

An early attempt

I had this crazy idea to cut out the canopy of some of my 1/300th aircraft and replace it with a pilot(s) and a clear canopy. To get some different ideas, I posted on a few groups and forums and then compiled the following list of suggestions:-

• Carving it out of a solid piece of clear plastic and polishing it to restore the transparency
• Painting a pilot and cockpit onto the model
• A technique used by Battletech players called “jewelling the cockpits” I found this article about it http://www.camospecs.com/Article.asp?FictionID=19
• Plunge mold (similar to vacuum moulding but without the vacuum) the canopy using an old blister pack and a candle.
• Use Super glue to make the canopy
• Make a mold from plasticine by tpressing the canopy into it and then pour clear resin into it while suspending the pilot at the top of the mould
• Make the canopy from  a two part clear epoxy and file to shape

Most people came to the conclusion that I am mad and they are probably right. I also have enough other projects to do without getting diverted onto a another time consuming project such as this.

The first reasonable canopy

First I tried using some old blisters to push mould the canopy onto a Me 262 2 seater from CNC. This is a nice model with good definition on the canopy, but after numerous attempts this is the final result. Obviously its hard to see much in the photo so I tried a blue ink wash but that didn’t show up the results any better. You can just make out the ridges on the top of the cockpit butthe side detail isn’t very good.

The canopy with some blue ink to show the details

From what I could tell the results weren’t great so I thought I would try using this as a mold and make a canopy from PVA. I didnt want to spend $50 NZ on some clear resin as this is only an experiment at the moment. After a few days of drying the PVA mold didn’t come out very well as it shrunk a lot during the drying. I should have added some more PVA into the mold, but I forgot at the time, but I will.

The canopy filled with PVA glue

Next I will try to sculpt a couple of WW2 pilots and make a vacuum forming box.

Cheers.

Well I’ve been busy with painting and terrain making commissions so I have been slack keeping this blog updated but its good to see that people are still visiting this page.

The 1/300th vehicles have taken a back seat to the scenery since it is easier to mold and cast in resin.  For any metal figures/vehicles, we need to find a local person/company that can cast metal figures, and the options are limited.

Tree trunks/ stumps

Most wargames trees come with twisted wire trunks which look ok from a distance but stll look like twisted wire trunks. I came up with the idea of making trunks after seeing the lovely larger scale tree trunks by Snapdragon.

I started by finding some small brass tube offcuts, and checking that a few different brands of twisted wire trees can fit inside them.  Then I made a base area out of a blob of green stuff and pressed the brass tube into it. Once that had hardened, I made the trunk out of modelling putty. I wanted to make them big enough to stand up to the casting process but not too overscaled. The details on the trunks are quite exaggerated but hopefully that means that they will paint up well.

Close up of the tree trunks

Once they are finished it should just be a matter of trimming the trunk of your tree and glueing them into the trunk. Another option is to fill the hole to make a tree stump, or add a few twigs/ pieces of wire to make damaged trees.

Tree trunks

They are pretty simple and are easy to make yourself, but if you are like me and have hundreds of trees then it could become very time consuming.  So these are aimed at the gamer who doesn’t have the time or inclination.

Next up will be some African buildings. I have also been experimenting with different methods to make African shanty buildings. I have some good templates for making windows and corrugated iron and I will try and include those in the next posting.

Thanks for visiting

After a bit of a break while I worked on other things I’m back into it.

My hole punch tool arrived and it looks very useful. The punches are hollow so if the pieces get stuck in it you can push them out easily. I might invest in a better hammer as I only have a claw hammer and I think its overkill for punching through 0.5mm plastic card!

I gave it a go on some 0.5mm plasticard and here’s the results. I tried it on the cutting board but its too soft and it allowed the plastic to flex and it didn’t cut well. Later on I tried it on a piece of wood and the results were much better.

Onto some terrain

First I finished off the garden sets but I am still making a fountain to go with it. I might make the fountain part separate as it would be easier to cast I suspect.

Next I started on some tiled stone walls. These will be useful for European scenery and are generic enough to be useful for other periods. I made some 60mm long sections and the corner sections are 15mmm long in each direction. I laminated two pieces of plasticard together so that I could cut holes and have brick plastic card showing through.

The door was scored into the plastic (I softened it by putting a small dab of plastic glue onto it first) and I added some tiles around it from 0.25mm plasticard. I also added tiles onto the corner sections but they are very hard to see in the photo.

Then I added some small wall supports and covered the walls with a thin layer of modelling putty to create a slight texture.

After that I put a thin strip of modelling putty along the top and once it had hardened slightly I sculpted the tiles onto it with a modelling knife.

Finally I textured the base with modelling putty and made a couple of small bushes to break up the wall sections a bit.

I plan to make a bigger gate and a damaged section of the wall to go with these and tidy these up a little bit more.

Next blog I’ll hopefully finish off the other walls sections and I have a good idea for 6mm trees to try out.

Well I’ve just spent the last week and a half painting a army for the NZ Flames of War Mid war GT. Now I can get back into some 6mm scale  stuff again.

In the last blog I didnt have a lot of success cutting the wheels out of plastic card so I decided to try stamping them out of putty. The plan was to use Procreate to make the mold and the wheel. I’m also waiting for a hobby hole punch to turn up so I thought i’d try this out first.

I got some of the plastic wheels I had lying around and glued them onto pieces of sprue so that they could be easily stamped into the putty mold. I assembled some tubes of brass, a needle and a dremel bit. One handy tool that I had was a round bladed tip from a dremel type tool. I had a Fuller dremel style machine that came with one but some how I lost the bit so I had to buy another. It is very useful for making spoke or wire wheels.

Various tooks for stamping into the procreate to make wheel molds

And the wheel molds from procreate putty

I pressed the various tools into the putty along with brass tubes to create the wheels. I stuck the putty onto some scrap plasticard to give it some rigidity. I removed the strips around each one later on, as they got in the way when I was pressing the putty for wheels onto them.

The first batch!

I am pretty happy with the result even though they are a bit irregular and they still need trimming and cleaning up. The detail is good considering the size, and the wheel nuts (made from poking the needle into the mold) on the larger truck wheels are visible. Also the spoked wheels can be seen in the 2 middle wheels on the right side of the picture. I figure that if I make enough wheels, then I can use the best ones for the masters.

The start of making scenery

I thought I’d start with something simple so I am making some gardens for a chateau or as a town square/garden. The basic shape was made from plasticard and the I added some foliage out of putty. This is half a “set” as I will sell 2 retangular shapes, 2 square shapes , 4 triangular shapes and 4 curved shapes in a set along with a statue or fountain. They should be a good addition to any town square or the garden of a chateau/manor.

Whilst these would be easy to make yourself, I’m aiming this at the gamer who cant be arsed/doesn’t have the time to make these themselves.

The garden pieces almost finished

Thanks for reading.

Making wheels for 6mm vehicles

After some good ideas from the 6mm yahoo group I had a futile at making car and truck wheels. In my previous attempts, I had used green stuff but I found it hard to get the shape and thickness consistent.  So I decided to try cutting them out of 1mm thick plastic card.
My idea was to get some brass tubes, file the edges and use them in a drill or dremel to cut circles. I made 3 different sizes – truck, van/suv, and car.

Cutting tools and some plasticard that I cut

I put tubes within tubes to scribe the inner parts of the wheels and put the in my electic drill. Some of them came out well, but I found the brass tube didnt cut through plasticard very well. So I tried the dremel but the high speed melted my plasticard into the brass tube (see the white plastic inside the brass bits in the picture above)! Some of these that survived have a nice raised area in the middle where the melted plastic gathered.

So I went back to the drill with my now clogged cutters. I also tried making some new tubes just for cutting the outside edges but that didnt really work either. In the end I got about 30 large wheels and a few medium and no small wheels as the cutter just didnt work well enough.

Some of the wheels that I produced.

The pictures show a few of the wheels I got out of it and none of these I was very happy with, and I spent most of an afternoon on it.

Later on I remembered I had some small return roller wheels from a 1/72 Marder and Leopard 2.  They are nicely detailed and will make great rims for the wheels.  I also remembered some 1/288 aircraft wheels I had from a Tu-160 Blackjack and a DC10. They are a little big but can be filed down and they will well for large 18 wheeler trucks.

Now I’m off to try this and I will post the results in the next blog.

Onto sculpting tools

Meanwhile after speaking to my mate who is going to sculpt some 6mm figures, he recommended making some scuplting tools as the standard ones are too big for making 6mm figures and terrain.

I had some dowel lying around and some old knife blades and needles. For the first tool I just bent a needle. The second tool was a knife blade that I rounded off  but I think it still needs to be shaped better, and the third tool was a needle which I flattened and then rounded the end to make it nice and smooth.

Then I sanded down the end of the dowel and drilled a hole for the needles to fit in. Next I glued on the needles into the hole with superglue. For the knife blade I cut a groove using a small modelling saw.

Finally I added a few layers of PVA where the needle/blade went into the dowell to help give it more strength and to prevent it moving around and coming loose.

I have yet to try these out but I will soon as I’m going to start making some scenery next…

Introduction

The idea of this blog started when a friend and I decided to start making our own figures in 6mm scale.  There are quite a few gaps in the ranges available and quite a difference in quailty between the different manufatcurers. Whilst I’m not a fan of blogs I thought it would be good to document to some of the ups and downs of creating figures and scenery.

I already had a few ideas about 6mm models that I wanted to create and these includes civilian vehicles, modern African soldiers and mercs, civilians and some vehicle crews.  My friend would sculpt the figures and i would try making some terrain masters.

Later on I came up with a master list of vehicles/scenery based on the ideas I got from others and also from looking at terrain in other scales:-

Terrain/Scenery packs

Small street furniture
Rural accessories
City street pack
Village accessories
Chateau accessories
Bocage
Sheds/ Lean to’s
Walls
Street lights
Telegraph poles
Power pylons
Industrial accessories
Roadblock/Checkpoint
Barricades
Supply depot
Truck/supply yard
Motorway roadworks
Oil farm accessories
African buildings

Cars/vehicles

2 stationwagons – Mercedes Benz wagon, Ford Cortina wagon
2 coupes – Citroen bubble car, Jaguar XJS, Ford Capri
3 Sedan – Mercedes SL sedans, Fiat 125, Jaguar XJ
1 Convertible – Saab, BMW 3 series
1 h/back – VW Golf,
SUVs – Chevy Suburban, Toyota Landcruiser
Vans – Ford Transit, Chevy van
Police car
18+ wheeler tractor trailer with flat deck and maybe a fuel tanker trailer
Additonal loads for the flat deck
Truck tractor – 2 different cab styles – 1 Mack and 1 Mercedes Benz/Volvo

I will flesh out the ideas soon and add another blog. If you have any suggestions/comments please let me know

Kieran

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