And the saint himself sayeth:
To give you the full story on this, actually KR wants to get this one quite
badly, but the problem is that I haven't got anything good enough to send
him as a master right now. The moulds for the 25-56 dropship are old
and failing, and I need to do some bits of reworking of the original before I
remould it - at the moment we are just casting the odd one or two out
to fill UK orders as they come in (and a couple to take to each show we
do).
The remodelling/remoulding is in the "to be done" pile, like so much
other stuff (FB2, FMA, BDS, sleep, food etc., etc..... you get the idea?).
When we get it revised for full production again, KR will get his masters and
be able to make it for the US market.
=========================================
I got mine and I have to say I concur with your analysis. I've seen far better
molds for some of your other work. As an aside, can anyone tell me why the
current armourcast moulds seem
to be almost perfect (ie very very little work need done - most of the
terrain I've bought and my two older Eldar Tempests in 25mm) requiring no
filling or filing or prep and most of the resins I've got from Jon and KR have
required filing, surface pockmark filling, and in the case
of the dropship some noticeable attacks with a big-ass mill file to
get the segments together? And the resin seems a little different?
Now, I understand Armourcast may use a better resin and hence their per
vehicle price is higher (at least I assume this is it). Is there
something different or more high-tech about their process? This might
help explain the apparent quality difference and or the cost difference. (If
anyone has checked out their latest big ass Battletech
kit at $140.00 US you'll know what I mean - I think each of my
tempests were worth about $62.00 Can each or so).
So, someone who knows (KR or Jon), could you comment on the
differences - the whys and wherefors?
As to the GZG dropship, for those who have not seen it, it is a bulky
but kind of neat unit - holds 1 APC or the Coonhound FSV/Tank
Destroyer and seems to me it'd be very solid. The APC is the LIPPC, a small
NAC (I think) APC. The dropship is not an aliens style weapons carrier that
also drops pallets or APCs. It is a transport. It has a weapon but that
obviously isn't its main role. The LIPPC isn't the
aliens APC - far too small. By comparison, if the crew in the galoob
Alien's APC is any scale, the "real" aliens APC would be 10" long in
25mm. (It is about 1/72nd scale and is 8" long). The Aliens APC would
be taller by a fair piece than a standing man - esp if you count the
height of the gun turret. The LIPPC is about a six man APC with six wheels.
If anyone has seen them, Grendel had some multi-wheeled armoured
vehicles that also have turrets. I'm trying to negotiate an
acquisition of some of them. They are pretty sweet - 6 wheels, and an
RFAC in the turret. Look big enough to hold an eight man squad.
Jon, another thought for you (an easy "extras" kit): Off Road Tires! You make
plenty of wheels for plenty of APCs but all are what I'd
describe as racing slicks - they don't have the character of the tires
I've seen on OR vehicles (like the MOWAG chassis for the Grizzly, LAV, etc)
and it strikes me a mould for these could be a good spruce up item for those
of us with APCs to build and not cost you much to make.
Anyway, that's my 0.02 FWIW. Maybe it'll help someone or provoke some
discussion.
Now, it's kind of a pity too that we couldn't get a 25mm moulding in Resin of
Brian's kitbashed VTOL. That would be a great assault vehicle.... I wonder if
that would be feasible? I don't actually know how upscaling works or what it
costs. But its a sharp looking piece of kit.
> Thomas Barclay wrote:
Thank you! AS for taking mouldings off it, that would be very cool, but it
would mean taking the thing apart, at least into several sections! Ain't
gonna happen! That VTOL was a one-off - even if I wanted to build a
sister ship, there's no way it'll be identical. I'm too loose a builder for
that to happen.
That said, building it was actually not that hard. (Replicating it exactly
_would_ be!) Take 1 Hokum body, and assemble w/ cockpit. Cut most of the
tail off, and then cut the bottom half off the remainder. Fit one of the
Hokum's engines into the resulting reccess. Glue solidly, and putty any holes,
including the rotor mount hole on top of the body.
For the wings, take two A-10 wings. Assemble, then cut the end third
off. Invert the remainder, then saw & file the trailing edge until it
resembles a real wing again. Glue solidly to the body. Pins might not be a bad
idea, or epoxy.
For engines, assemble the A-10s engine pods. Glue one on each end of the
wings, at a good angle. Pins and epoxy are both required here. Some trimming
of the engine pods might be needed.
Putty as needed, paint, dullcote, decal, etc. Viola, one very interesting
looking VTOL attack craft... Total work time, about 12hrs. (it took me a week
and a half, because I HAD to have it finished for a con game. But I had no
social life for that time... great con, though!)
After that, you could partly dismantle your own to make casting molds from!
Pictures of mine are available at
<http://warbard.iwarp.com/sg2gallery.html>. Anyone seriously interested
in more details, please contact me off list.
--------- Quote --------------
The remodelling/remoulding is in the "to be done" pile, like so much
other stuff (FB2, FMA, BDS, sleep, food etc., etc..... you get the
idea?).
-------- End Quote --------------
Good to know that Jon has it priorities straight! ;-)
***
And the saint himself sayeth:
To give you the full story on this, actually KR wants to get this one quite
badly, (...)
***
Actually, I'd pretty much heard this, and figured there was plenty of tension
about it already, and was hoping not to add to it.
***
> Now, it's kind of a pity too that we couldn't get a 25mm moulding in
...
That said, building it was actually not that hard.
***
Easy enough for you to say. I tried to convert a 1/72 Hind.
Got a squat in the front after chopping his legs, and cutting the canopy
leaving only half of the first bubble in, and
putting the torso of a beakie-mark captain in place where
the rotors popped out. Was looking pretty good, but could never decide exactly
what to do with the rear end.
I cut off the tail, was going to put a rear gunner there, but never got the
thing figured out. Ended up giving it to a braver modeller than I.
Of course, I'm rather well-known for great ideas never
completed...
;->= That should open the flood gates.
The_Beast
> On 27 Sep 99, at 19:10, Thomas Barclay wrote:
> Now, I understand Armourcast may use a better resin and hence their
As I understand it, they use a resin comparable to ours but they pull vacuum
on the stuff as it sets up. Quite a feat I'm told since the resin sets in just
a few minutes. I have a line on a new resin from an outfit called Polytech
somewhere in the wilds of Pennsylvania that is supposed to give excellent
reproduction without the need for vacuum or pressure molding. We are beginning
to experiment with pressure molding here, hopefully the quality will go up,
but it looks like the trade off is a higher price. The labor added when
molding with pressure or vacuum increases cost.
> So, someone who knows (KR or Jon), could you comment on the
See above. Also note that because of the small (I hope!) difference in quality
we have managed to keep our resin prices down. We are always looking at new
ways to do things, new resins and new products to exploit new resins. We've
had a marked improvement in quality since we started doing resin in 1994, and
we'll continue
to improve - but we also want to keep it affordable. Armorcast
does not give wholesalers and distributors the level of discounts that we do,
if they did, their price would go up.
KR, Geo-Hex
> As to the GZG dropship, for those who have not seen it, it is a bulky