And Now, a Successful Mold

       It's weird what I think of when I wake up in the middle of the night. This night I woke up thinking of SAE figures and how to use them for Little Wars. There is one line in my first copy of Little Wars: " His fire met my advance, littering the gentle grass slope with dead,..." and next to this line, one of J.R.  Sinclair's margin drawing of what looks like Boer War British infantry charging through a barrage of wooden shells that inspired my next mold. I have some SAE British Colonial infantry that are painted with the traditional red coats and with pith helmets. I decided to try to mold one of these figures that I could paint as Boer War infantry.

    Next day I went to work on the mold using the same procedure mentioned in the last post. Below is the result.

The master after pouring the first half of the mold.

Start of production.

Fresh out of the mold. At this point I would put the mold back together and pour another  casting. Then I cut the pour spout off and return it to the pot; file down the base, and trim any flashing off the figure. By this time the next figure can be removed from the mold.

Some of the casting next to the master.  

Mold Making

I said recently that it might be time to do a post on my mold making. Here it is.

In the past, I decided that if figures I wanted can be bought, I would save myself the work of casting my own. With my recent work on SAE 30mm Civil War figures, my collection has no cavalry ready for use, although I have several that are broken off their bases. I went to the Spencer Smith website, but they didn't have the figure I really wanted for my project. Also, right now money is tight.  As I have the rubber to make my own mold and the figure I wanted, my plan was to try to join the two pieces as close together as possible and hopefully carve any rubber off to unite the two pieces.

The master placed in clay. Try to find the original mold lines and follow the same. The  keys are made by sticking a paintbrush into the clay and rotating it to make a cup shape. For the box, I used. two pieces of  "L" shaped metal for the box. As can be seen, it is easy enough to make the box larger or smaller. Some people use Legos to make the box.

Aeromarine 125 2 part RTV silicone rubber. It's easy to measure, as it's measured 1:1. 

I have learned to measure A first, then B. I use a tablespoon to measure it. Usually  I use 3 tablespoons of each  for molds. As this mold is larger than most, I upped it to 4 tablespoons.

Pouring the rubber into the mixing cup. The cup is easy enough to clean. Just wait for the rubber to set then peel out the dried rubber.

After getting the rubber measured out, then stir until it's a uniform color.

I usually drizzle in some of the rubber into the keys so as to stop air pockets  from forming.

I  drizzle the rubber over the figure,  then work the rubber around the figure. I  wait a couple minutes, letting air bubbles pop.

Then slowly pour in the rubber.

This rubber cures in 8 hours, which speeds up the mold making process. If there is rubber film where there shouldn't be, gently cut the rubber and remove the film.  I then cover the exposed rubber with petroleum  jelly. I use an old paintbrush to work the jelly in. This is the mold release. Then repeat the above process.

I would love to say it produced the figures as planned. However, I couldn't get the mold to work right, and so the mold isn't a success. I have decided to order the figures from Spencer Smith, even if they're not what I wanted.  I did make another mold, which was more successful. I will show more on that later.

After several attempts at making the mold work, I still was unable to. I wasn't going to show this, but the reality is not all molds work as you hope. 

6mm Dark Ages Wargaming

       One good thing about streaming TV is that you can binge watch different series. Recently I binge watched the series "Vikings", also "The Last Kingdom", based on Bernard Cornwell's books. At the same time there was a lot of Irregular Miniatures 6mm Dark Ages figures on Ebay, enough for two small armies to use with "No Brain Wargame" rules. For these games I did add a few rules.

Both armies have Huscarl stands. These stands get a +1 on their dice rolls. Archers can be behind their own line and fire over their own troops. If the King is with a unit, he adds 1 dice to the rolls. And if  the situation requires it, a king can more all his units back two spaces to try to consolidate his line. However, if any unit is engaged in melee, one stand must be left behind to give his unit time to retreat.

The first battle with the new 6mm armies. They were given a quick paint job to distinguish them more  easily. 

The pictures were taken late in the game. The blue army has been pushing the green army back.

The Blue Huscarls have broken through the green center. At this point the green king conceded defeat.

This is near the end of a second game played. On the left can be seen a white figure. This is a marker I used to remind me that this army was moving second during the game turn. I put this marker with the army commander.

In this turn the green unit managed to roll a "Retreat" and a "Kill" on the dice. The blue king decided to  use the retreat to save himself; he had to retreat off the board. The kill roll killed his last Huscarl stand.

The blue army got to fight out their turn, but had to, with the loss of the king, to concede the field to the green army.

As can be seen by this shot behind the green line, the blue army, troop wise, was in better shape. Had the king not be lost, there is a good chance they would have won this battle.

New SAE Recruits

       I have been looking back at my blog and liked the look of the SAE wargames I've had. As I haven't done much with the hobby, I thought I would work on my SAE ACW figures. My collection have more Confederates than Union, so I decided to switch some of the Rebels to Union men.

    The only ACW cavalry figures I have are broken off their bases, and no artillery figures. I started to  look on Ebay for cheap cavalry figures. While going through the sales, there was a photograph of 11 SAE British Guards. The price wasn't bad so I started watching them. As the time was running out, I realized that there were more figures in this lot. There were a total of 34 figures total. The rest were WW2 figures painted like British 19th century soldiers. I bid and won the lot. One reason I wanted these figures was there were 4 figures that looked like they might  be Viet Cong figures. When I received them, I realized that they're British WW2 figures. And while I thought the rest were American figures, one is a WW2 German figure. All in all,  at .76 cents per figure, it was a great purchase.

New SAE Union recruits

The SAE ACW figures divided. These don't include Zouave figures that I have.

The newly purchased SAE figures.

The. WW2 figures of the lot.

The 4 British figures. I really like the mortar man.

The German infantryman with the Brits in the background.

Back in the Saddle

       One of my brothers was kind enough to give me his "old" Mac computer (it's about 6 years old), allowing me to get back on line. A big thanks to my brother, Mike.

    I bought some new rubber and made a mold of one of my sculpts. I wanted to see if the green stuff would handle being pressed into the clay I use. The figure held up to the abuse, and I am happy with the end result. Unfortunately, I ran out of metal after 3 figures. Unlike in the past,   I ordered new metal instead of melting down old figures or using scrap metal. The new metal came in yesterday, however, right now I don't see myself casting anymore of the figures, as I don't think I will have use for them.

   Little else has been done with wargaming, except a few games and trying to get motivated on some project; so far little luck.

Finished casting of my original sculpt.

Figures painted as cavemen.

I added a spear to one of the figures.

Crash and Burn

As Christmas approaches, both my refrigerator and stove needs replacement. If that isn't bad enough, the hard drive on my computer crashed. I have figured out how to replace the appliances without getting farther in debt: replacing the computer is another matter. So it might be a long time before there will be any more posting on my blog; unless I can figure out how to use my Kindle to download pictures. By the way, this was from my Kindle, so there might be hope.

Toy Soldier Chessboard Wargame

Blue toy soldier army vs. Red toy soldier army. Landscape terrain is the same on each side.  Game using Chris Salander's Horse & Musket 2.0 rules.

Both sides rush forward to seize favorable terrain.

Blue fire drives one red soldier to retreat from the woods.

Red advances against the blue right...

...and kills three soldiers.

Blue return fire kills three red soldiers, as the blue army pushes forward their left flank.  Meanwhile the blue unit advances on the woods in the center.

The leftmost red unit kills two blue infantry, while another blue soldier is killed before the woods.

Blue continues their assault on their left. They kill one red soldier and force two to retreat from the stone wall.

The red commander starts moving some of his troops from the left to bolster his right flank. Meanwhile, blue loses two more men on their right flank.

Blue continues to hit the red right. Red loses two more soldiers behind the stone wall.

Red drives back the defenders of the woods on blue's right flank; the red troops in the woods  forces the blue infantry in it's front to retreat, and blue has one killed in it's left flank.

Blue moves to shore up it's right flank.

Red counterattacks on it's right.

Blue finally takes the woods in the center, kills one infantryman, and drives one off the battlefield. They also win the race for the woods behind their lines.

Red drives the blue infantryman out of the woods on the top left of the picture. The red counterattack on the woods in their center drives one blue soldier back( as there are already 4 infantrymen in that square, the soldier is killed.

The blue left continues their push on the left. Meanwhile, the blue infantry tries to clear the woods in the foreground.

The blue attack on the red right falters; one soldier is killed and the others forced to retreat. Meanwhile, blue loses two more soldiers in the center.

Blue disparately tries to rally in the center.

The red army hits the blue left flank hard, killing two more blue soldiers.

At this point the blue commander orders a retreat. The first side to lose 16 men loses the battle.

As the blue army falls back, the red commander comes forward to lead the pursuit.