Eric
Administrator
Like many I started so innocently with no plans for my soul to be rent into a thousand pieces and to eke out a living among the vermin of ebay. This is my tale...
I've always been fond of EPIC scale titans and whilst I don't have any particular plans to re-collect or to actually get my EPIC Eldar army off my brother and actually paint the damn thing I have from time to time picked up the odd metal titan to repaint at some unspecified future point (or lifetime, damn there had better be reincarnation if I'm going to finish it all!). In this vein I managed to get hold of an Ork Great Gargant for a very reasonable price given they often seem to be stupid money. Into the paint stripper it went and happily sat there for a few days since I had no pressing need for it.
Now I normally scrub my paint off in an old tupperwear tub of water and I duly did this with the minis from the paint stripper, obviously the water gets a bit mucky and if you're doing plastic you do need to be careful not to loose it below the murk and have to spend ages trying to find it. Well one of the Gargant's feet was still glued to the skirt, the paint stripper had loosened it and a bit of scrubbing saw it detach and sink to the bottom. No problem thinks I, I'll ferret that out in a second. Needless to say my lead addled brain forgot and I managed to instead think "I need a change of water" and I chucked the old lot down the drain presumably along with the foot. Half an hour later and I realise my mistake ... que a succession of expletives the likes of which would burn the ears off most of the pantheon of Chaos. I did have a rummage in the drain, but with no luck and it's not on the workbench so I think it's busy contaminating the Dorset water supply now.
So what to do? ... I'm not paying £10,000 or whatever some ebay scalper wants for a Gargant food and luckily they are super simple sculpt wise and only just poke out under the Gartant's skirt anyway. A few minutes later and I have a small box glued together from foam core scraps. I clean up the remaining foot and I lightly tack (just with some PVA) to the bottom of the box and leave it all to dry. The following day I break out the silicone and the "causes death at 300 paces" vivid yellow catalyst for the silicone. Mix up a small amount and try not to introduce bubbles (one day I shall buy a vacuum chamber) and pour it over the foot. I left that curing on my ancient second hand dental cast shaker for a bit and went to curse my ineptitude again for throwing out the original foot.
The next day I broke out the mould and mixed up some resin (not a great one as it's a bit extra prone to bubbles, but it needs using) and poured some into the mould, back on the shaker and left to cure for 30 minutes. Turned out and the bottom trimmed off and flattened. Hopefully once on a base and painted no one will know of my faux-pas - well except anyone with Internet access of course - and it'll just be a horrible surprise for someone in years to come when they think they've bought a Great Gargant for a steal and strip it off to find one of those little slippers is nothing but a scummy recast ...
Hopefully that will do, I might try a second cast to see if I get all the rivet details as one or two got nobbled by air bubbles, but let that be a job for another day.
So that be a cautionary tale of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, lest you descend to the level of a re-caster and join me in my pit of sin...
I've always been fond of EPIC scale titans and whilst I don't have any particular plans to re-collect or to actually get my EPIC Eldar army off my brother and actually paint the damn thing I have from time to time picked up the odd metal titan to repaint at some unspecified future point (or lifetime, damn there had better be reincarnation if I'm going to finish it all!). In this vein I managed to get hold of an Ork Great Gargant for a very reasonable price given they often seem to be stupid money. Into the paint stripper it went and happily sat there for a few days since I had no pressing need for it.
Now I normally scrub my paint off in an old tupperwear tub of water and I duly did this with the minis from the paint stripper, obviously the water gets a bit mucky and if you're doing plastic you do need to be careful not to loose it below the murk and have to spend ages trying to find it. Well one of the Gargant's feet was still glued to the skirt, the paint stripper had loosened it and a bit of scrubbing saw it detach and sink to the bottom. No problem thinks I, I'll ferret that out in a second. Needless to say my lead addled brain forgot and I managed to instead think "I need a change of water" and I chucked the old lot down the drain presumably along with the foot. Half an hour later and I realise my mistake ... que a succession of expletives the likes of which would burn the ears off most of the pantheon of Chaos. I did have a rummage in the drain, but with no luck and it's not on the workbench so I think it's busy contaminating the Dorset water supply now.
So what to do? ... I'm not paying £10,000 or whatever some ebay scalper wants for a Gargant food and luckily they are super simple sculpt wise and only just poke out under the Gartant's skirt anyway. A few minutes later and I have a small box glued together from foam core scraps. I clean up the remaining foot and I lightly tack (just with some PVA) to the bottom of the box and leave it all to dry. The following day I break out the silicone and the "causes death at 300 paces" vivid yellow catalyst for the silicone. Mix up a small amount and try not to introduce bubbles (one day I shall buy a vacuum chamber) and pour it over the foot. I left that curing on my ancient second hand dental cast shaker for a bit and went to curse my ineptitude again for throwing out the original foot.
The next day I broke out the mould and mixed up some resin (not a great one as it's a bit extra prone to bubbles, but it needs using) and poured some into the mould, back on the shaker and left to cure for 30 minutes. Turned out and the bottom trimmed off and flattened. Hopefully once on a base and painted no one will know of my faux-pas - well except anyone with Internet access of course - and it'll just be a horrible surprise for someone in years to come when they think they've bought a Great Gargant for a steal and strip it off to find one of those little slippers is nothing but a scummy recast ...
Hopefully that will do, I might try a second cast to see if I get all the rivet details as one or two got nobbled by air bubbles, but let that be a job for another day.
So that be a cautionary tale of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, lest you descend to the level of a re-caster and join me in my pit of sin...
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I've no problem with people doing stuff for themselves, especially when restoring a model.
