Monday, 2 November 2020

Casting triumphs and failures .


Spent a few hours casting up some extra figures for my 54mm collections - thanks to 'B' my wargaming  colleague for providing the old figures to be melted down - think these are Heroic & Ros FPW (?) .


Some of my 54mm Prince August molds are rather worn and need that bit of extra clamping to stop the metal running .


Here are the fruits of my casting , I've had to use a bit of 'green stuff' to get the arms to fit and repair a miss-cast rifle . These molds are some of Prince August's oldest molds and perhaps  showing their age compared to their newer ones . I've added Irregular Picklehaube heads to turn them into Prussian/German/Black Army .


Flushed with success I thought I would try and cast from this ancient mold I once got years ago from a junk/antique shop - I have NEVER managed to get a casting from this mold - and failed again today ! . Think I need to add some channels to the horses feet and riders head to help the flow of metal , also I think the mold has to be heated up to a high temperature to get the metal to run before it cools . Being solid it will take quite a bit of metal per casting but if I can get figures from it I could do head swaps and it would be very useful - watch this space for further developments .





 

 

13 comments:

  1. Hi Tony- Your Prince August figures with Prussian Head swaps come up excellently well. When I was doing Casting I used a 'LEE-Pro' electric melting pot- saves a lot of mucking around and is a breeze to work with- no mess and safe - the Pots can be obtained from Gunsmith Shops - it is an American Machine. Well worth the price. Regards. KEV.

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    1. Yes I've seen the melting pot - must start saving up my pennies .

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    2. I have one of those bottom-pout pots from Lee. It melts a lot of metal, but I have to say that the spout is a little prone to jamming, and I have had issues that I think are caused by the pour rate being slow enough that the metal doesn’t fill the extremities of the mold cavity beofre solidifying. I switch over to a Palmer heated metal ladle this past summer, and felt that the results were generally better. I still need the Lee, though for reducing large bars to smaller ingots.

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    3. Must admit I've had no dealings with them .

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    4. Clear the spout of the melting pot with an 'L' shaped piece of Piano Wire.

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  2. Teutonic chaps look splendid. Look forward to seeing them in all their glossy glory.

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    1. Busy painting them now - the weather is lousy so keeping me indoors .

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  3. The prussian chaps look great; the cavalry mould looks like it will need a lot of air vents/reservoirs - good luck

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    1. Yes being a heavy metal I am a bit cautious in cutting vents in it .

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  4. It must take a lot of those Heroics & Ros figures to make one of those 54mm chaps.

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    1. There was a lot of 15mm as well as other bits and pieces .

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  5. A most productive 'few hours'; beaut stuff.
    The horse and rider are so close. It does not look as though it will take much refurbishment of the mould?
    Regards, James

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    1. Think I'm not heating the mold enough to get the metal to flow through it before setting .

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