Frustrated at mistake

Spent 12 hours placing a hydrocal mix for scenery detail on over 250 1x2 in bases for my Flames of War Soviet Infantry figures. Woke up this am to a peeled mess as on each base the mixture dried to a powder. and easily fell off bases. Looked at the mixture and in my frustration realized I did not add Elmer's Glue into the mix of hydrocal, medium rail gravel, and earth fiber, so it just dried out and fell off. Me and momma had to clean each base so we can start over tomorrow night.

The tourney is first weekend in Feb and all vehicles and bases must be painted and detailed. The 70 armor vehicles just need some weathering and decals, artillery pieces the same, need to spray rocket rails for my Kataysha trucks. Now I have to start all over on all the Infantry, Mortar, Machine gun, and light Inf Howitzers, over 250 bases.

Each 15mm scale soldier, usually 5 per base, are painted basic Khaki uniform, Russian Green helmets, gunmetal and wood for weapons, leather belts, Russian Khaki for blanket wrap and webgear, and finally dirty black boots.

Each vehicle, artillery piece, cannon, mortar, medium machine gun, is painted Russian Green. Vehicles are then muddied up, fenders and items bent, just looking well used. Finally weathered and detailed. Even made camo nets with mosquito netting and colored threads sewn into net mesh.

Each fixed position for artillery is built up with hydrocal mix, bermed and built up with small sticks to represent logs, and small individually formed model clay 'sandbags'.

My model railroad expierience came in real handy. My German Panzer Grenadier Kompanie won several appearence awards in past tourneys. I plan for the same with my Russians. The Omaha hobby store players have called the Lincoln store and have asked what I have bought so they can counter. I am planning on burying the German, Hungarian, or Bulgarian forces I am pitted against with pure artillery firepower and masses of either Infantry or Armor

Once I get all preped I will post photos of the new Russian and the old German pieces that have already won awards.

This is all keeping me sane till the VA gets me in to fix the stim and the pain stops again, I get the 'word' on the plan tomorrow, hope it is quick.

Edited by oldsoldier - 18 January 2011 at 12:17am

Warhammer 40k.  So cool.

Went back to the hobby store I used to frequent while I was on winter break.  Made me want to get back into it.  Then I looked at the prices.  My left eyeball is still sore from popping it back in.

I pay an average of $70.00 for an Infantry Company, and average $11.00 per vehicle, pretty pricey too.


$70.00


$243.00


$11.00 (40 of them)

Then add 5 IS-2's, 10 T-34/85, 3 ISU 152, 3 SU 122, 10 T-70, 10 BA 64, 8 Katauysha trucks, 8 122mm field guns, 8 152mm field guns, 8 ZIS 3 AT guns, 4 76mm Inf Howitzers, 5 SU 76 Assault guns, and all the fixtures, paint and scenery items.

I have about $5000 in all Flames of War minitures.

The problem is that moulds cost. Even if theya re for resin or plastics, they are still damn expensive to make.

So models are expensive regardless of the materials they are made out of.

But WH40K must be made out of platinum or something. Last squad I bought was over 2 years ago, and I was literally coining it then. It still hurt the wallet.

KBK

Kayback wrote: The problem is that moulds cost. Even if theya re for resin or plastics, they are still damn expensive to make. So models are expensive regardless of the materials they are made out of. But WH40K must be made out of platinum or something. Last squad I bought was over 2 years ago, and I was literally coining it then. It still hurt the wallet. KBK

I understand that the molds cost quite a bit (mainly from designing silicone molds -- we were talking $50,000 to essentially make a silicone box with an open top and minimal details), but GW is definitely at the most expensive end of miniatures.

I would expect plastic would bring costs way down, as it reduces wear on the molds and costs significantly less for the same volume.  I guess it does in the case of GW, as their metal miniatures tend to run in the $10-20 range a piece, while you pay $35 for 10 or so plastic miniatures.  Still, as you said, they must be made of platinum.

No, just layed the hydrocal terrain mix on all the infantry, artillery, mortar, and machine gun bases. Did not mix it right as I usually use hydrocal, model railroad ballast, earth railroad terrain fiber, and elmers glue as an additional bond agent. I spread this on all the bases, build up berms and dug in positions, and as with my US, German and British no problem.

Since I forgot to add it, there was no elmers glue to help the hydrocal bond, it all just dried out and fell away as a powdered mess.

Already started redoing the bases, small batches of mix instead of large batches where it can dry out before application. Me and momma got the 'Sappers', Engineers, and scouts done tonight. We have the Infantry tomorrow, and will do all the artillery, mortar and machine gun 'dug in' bases friday.

Have any of you ever get so frustrated with a figure (metal ones) and stripped off all the paint and start over from scratch?

I use the recomended paints
and never had a problem with the paints. It is usually the terrain mixture mix. Yes I have boile washed these pieces here and there, and we had to wash off all of the faulty hydrocal mix to restart. The figures and select weapons are preglued and basecoated on the bases prior to the application of terrain mix. Stripping the paint if needed is real easy, just brush on model enamel paint thinner, the acrylic will 'bubble' and then a boil wash and all paint is removed from figure/vehicle.