brilliant work yet again Robin the attention to detail is stunning

Rgd Martyn

Many thanks indeed to Martyn, Nem, Tom and Kev for those kind words! "Museum Quality" is the highest accolade in a forum like this - grateful thanks for that Nem and congratulations on your own well deserved position of the month!
"Leave the HOUSE!" What! Actually I do get out from time to time mostly shopping trips and three days a week on a caring job (7 mile round trip by cycle!) and in fact a later stage of this build will reveal just how useful it is to be 'out and about'
OK, on with the building and in this installment a few of the component parts worked on separately come together at last and Frederick begins to look like a real figure!

The first joint to be started was the left shoulder as shown in Photo 1. The moveable ‘universal joint’ was glued into its final position some weeks ago now, (actually it was glued twice – the first time I wasn’t sure if I’d glued the rotating pivot or not and the next day I tried moving it only to snap off the much weaker peg holding the entire arm into the torso!) The first task in blending in the shoulder is to mix up a little Silver Grey Milliput Epoxy Putty and to apply a thin ‘sausage’ of putty around the base of the joint, this was then smoothed outwards from the arm to fill in the rectangular depression and blend into the torso itself as illustrated in Photo 2. Further putty was then added in to enlarge the initial filler, especially at the back of the shoulder where that same rectangular dip extended almost to the armour itself. Once the ‘missing’ shoulder area was filled in, the putty was then smoothed over using first the round aluminium handle of the modelling knife to get the contours roughly right and then with a finger tip dipped into clean water – Milliput as most of you will know reacts well with simple water for moulding and smoothing out. This was the extent of the first session, apart from also filling in a small elbow gap on the right arm. The biggest problem I’ve always had with Milliput is gauging just how much to mix up for any particular job. On rare occasions I’m not too far out but as you can see in the bottom of Photos 3 and 4, I mixed up far more than this exercise required. Not to worry though, on this occasion I opened up the skylight and pushed the excess into a gap in the roof tiles! (Waste not want not!)
The next night I then began to carefully sand the set Milliput down further, making sure not to encroach over the edges of the moulded armour, and trimming the armpit region back from the said armour using a thin pointed modelling knife. I have always found with this kind of figure modelling that the best way to check on the overall ‘look’ of the limb/shoulder positioning (or any other part of the body for that matter) is to hold the model up to a strong backlight (in my case, the skylight in my attic workroom) and to look at the figure in silhouette, ie, just a black shape. By moving it around you can easily pick out any parts where either there is too much putty giving an unnatural ‘bulge’ or too little causing a ‘dip’ in the outline. Using this method eventually you can remove the excess and build up the missing bits until it looks ‘right’. Afterwards, once the Milliput is set hard you can still make any fine adjustment by either adding a thin skin of putty or sanding down as required.
You might notice in Photos 1 to 4, the left upper arm plate is still in the raw tuna tin finish whilst in the following pictures it is a nice shiny polished finish – more on this in a little while!
With the basic Milliputting completed on the left shoulder I could finally glue the right arm into position as illustrated in Photo 5. This time however, I had the good sense NOT to super glue the steel plate onto the upper arm! You’ll notice some big gaps still showing in the plastic arm, these will be filled in later though, the metal plate butts up tight against the elbow piece to cover over that gap and the plastic elbow joint protector or Couter fits in the other gap. Photos 6 and 7, show the initial application of the next mixing of the Milliput, roughly moulded and pushed into position for the right shoulder (hence the fingerprints everywhere), whilst Photos 8 and 9 were taken after the Milliput had been further smoothed out with the fingertip dipped in water. The only tool used in this part was the cylindrical aluminium knife handle, which was rolled up under the armpit, to round it off a little more. As mentioned before you’ll notice here that the metal arm plate is now fully polished. I had to wait almost a week to complete that task as, when I began to wire-brush the metal I became aware of an ever increasing barrage of shrapnel hitting my face and neck (fortunately, wearing both my reading glasses and the 3.5X Poundshop readers my eyes were protected). It turned out that my trusty old steel wire brush, decades old now had finally given up the ghost and as illustrated in Photo 10 had reached the technical condition known as ‘Addit’! (Also known as knackered!) I do have some brass wire equivalents but I’ve found that they just won’t strip the lacquer off that tuna tin – it has to be the steel variety. There was a time when you could pop into your local model or hobby shop and buy a single wire brush like this but nowadays you have to purchase a set of three – this one, a cylindrical shaped one and a cone shape too. I bought a set just to be able to carry on, but I’ve also been on ebay and ordered a set of ten circular brushes from China for the rest of the work. Cost: £1.79 for the set of three from the local Toolshed store and £4.50-ish for the ten from China (free p&p) Photo 11 shows the finished right shoulder again after some sanding down to blend the putty into the arm and a little extra paring away of the Milliput under the armpit again. With this arm that metal plate is just clipped in position, I’ll be able to remove this one for spraying the primer, the left hand one will have to be masked off. Finally in Photo 12 we have Frederick with both arms on in a trial run together with his head. This is a rough idea of his stance, the shield will probably be tilted up a little more and the sword will be above the shield not resting on the top of it, (this was the only way I could get it to stay in place long enough to photograph it!) But it does give some idea of the position. Now I was going to carry on with the torso to completion before starting on the legs but on second thoughts I think it will be easier to get the legs under way and be able to test fit without worrying about handling the finished silver leaf and polished metalwork, so that will be the next major section. In the meantime I will be getting the leather straps put together for the arms and breastplates – once again to avoid marring the finished varnish.
It will take me a couple of weeks or so before I’ve got enough of the legs done to post it up so for the next instalment here’s one I did earlier – talking through the stages of making the 1/12th scale ring-mail!

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!


Robin.

flipping heck Robin I have made full size chainmail and that was hard enough but in that scale wow hats off to you looking forward to seeing your next update

Rgd Martyn

Many thanks again to Martyn and Kev, much appreciated as always! I once made a mail Coif out of Screwfix split-rings, it wasn't easy either!In this scale it almost makes you cross-eyed!

So here’s how it went! Photo 1 shows the raw material used in the production of the rings – the same sized electrical wire I used for the masses of barbed wire in the Messines diorama. The wire I was using then was 7/0.2 or in English, seven strands of copper wire each one being 0.2mm in diameter. This particular wire however is 16/0.2 or sixteen strands. In case you’re wondering why the copper wire is silver, each strand is also tin-plated. In Photo 2 the process is under way with an individual strand of the wire being wound tightly around a 1mm brass rod held firmly in the mini vice. When I first started trying out this method, I could make the wire coils with no problems but was finding it very hard to cleanly cut the coil up into rings, my smallest pair of electrical snips would cut the coil two or three rings at a time but would squash the ends of the wire whilst doing so. What I needed was the smallest, sharpest pair of mini scissors I could find and as with so many other very useful things, I found it on ebay! Photo 3 illustrates those scissors. Called Micro Scissors or Snips on some sites these brilliant little things are also very useful for cutting round decals and especially snipping off excess rigging thread. Be warned though, I recently bought this year’s copy of a well known model supplies catalogue and found these self same snips in there for well over ten pounds, as I said, I bought mine on ebay, and the price was less than five!
In Photo 4 we have the resulting coil of wire after removal from the brass rod. Using the micro-snips I then start at one end of the coil and gently squeeze the snips handles to cut cleanly through the wire (this photo was taken way back when I first got the snips and before I began making longer and longer coils! – Photo 5) What we are left with then is a great pile of individual rings looking like the miniscule one perched on my index finger tip in Photo 6. Despite the size of the Micro-snips, the rings are still opened out slightly by the cutting action as you can see here, plus, they also have a slight ‘curve’ due to them being cut from a coil. In the full size mail, the individual rings would now be flattened by the armourer giving them a good wallop on the anvil – in my case, placing them on the jaw of a pair of long nose flat pliers and giving a good squeeze produces the same effect as shown in Photo 7. The next job is the most fiddly part of the process so far – using a good pair of sharp pointed tweezers the ring is placed on to a flat hard surface (usually the worktop) and the two ends of the ring are gently and carefully squeezed together to form a perfect circle. Usually this goes without a hitch but it has to be done in stages, as sometimes the ends will come together unevenly. In this case it is necessary to spin the ring around until the uneven end can be gripped in such a way as to force it in more than the other one until they both meet. Occasionally they don’t meet and overlap – then its time to ditch that ring and start another. Eventually we end up with a collection of good rings as shown in Photo 8 (up against the traditional penny). Now comes the really fiddly bit!
The first thing is to pick up a single ring (usually just by a quick lick on the finger tip and touching the ring on the work top) then, I have to find out where the join is. For many of the rings this is pretty easy but for those which went together perfectly it often means using even more powerful magnifiers – you literally cannot see anything other than a continuous metal hoop! Once I have found the join, I then have to grip the ring over that joint using the fine pointed tweezers as shown in Photo 9 – the black line marks the point at which the join is located. Still holding the ring in the tweezers I then have to grip the ring again, this time with the coarser spring tweezers, gripping onto the ring on the opposite side from the join as seen in Photo 10 – this time the black arrow marks the join. The whole reason for this procedure is to fix the ring to prevent it from opening up again during the construction of the mail. The real thing achieves this by riveting the ring closed – sorry, my optics don’t go that far down! In my case, the rings are soldered closed, this is why the tiny ring has to be held firmly with the join outer most. Using the soldering iron and the smallest smear of solder possible, the iron is held against the ring until the solder adheres to the metal and then the iron is taken away leaving an ultra thin solder joint – any excess solder just looks like the riveted part on the full sized ring, a collection of the soldered rings can be seen in Photo 11. From the fiddly bit we move on to the frustratingly even more fiddlier bit! Taking one of the flattened but un-closed rings it is gripped in the spring tweezers as close to the centre as possible. This then allows four soldered rings to be carefully ‘hooked’ over the open horns of the ring as illustrated in Photo 12. This particular shot shows the gripped ring after it too has been gently squeezed into the closed position and itself soldered shut. This is a lot more difficult than the other four rings as they were squeezed together on a flat surface, this joining ring has to be closed up ‘in situ’ on the end of the tweezers and with the other four rings doing their best to get in the way of course! Now that the group of five rings are fixed together, they now have to be gently prodded and pulled into position using a sharp cocktail stick until they are evenly placed around the central link, once there, the large aluminium knife handle is used to press down on the group to flatten them out as shown in Photo 13. Two such groups are shown in Photo 14 placed onto the sticky side of some FrogTape masking tape, this was part of an experiment to try and stiffen the groups up by giving them a light coat of Humbrol Gloss Acrylic Varnish. This was not entirely successful however as the thin varnish would always get down into the tiny spaces where the rings interlock and when removed from the tape these spaces would bring the tape adhesive with them giving an opaque effect which ruins the 3D effect of the rings. To glue the ring groups to the model I used the bottle of Daler Rowney Soluble Matt Varnish ‘For Acrylic Colour’ (as it says on the label) which I bought thinking I could airbrush the Spitfires in the Scramble diorama – its soluble all right, but only with spirits – not water as I thought! It is a lovely matt varnish though, and goes very sticky as it dries and it’s this stickiness, which I’m using to fix the rings in place. Firstly I apply a fairy thick coat of the varnish to the base and then, trying to keep the group of rings in their ‘flattened’ state, pick them up with the end of the varnish dipped paintbrush and drop them into position on the model. This is where it either goes right and the set of rings ends up just where I wanted it or else the group suddenly folds up into a right mess of rings sticking out all over the place from a tight metal ‘ball’. This isn’t the end of the world however, it is possible to tease the rings around with a combination of the paintbrush tip and cocktail sticks but it is extremely difficult, the number of times I’ve had it ‘almost’ right only to try and get it perfect and end up with the varnish on the brush or cocktail stick reaching the sticky phase and lifting the whole group off completely is nobody’s business! It was during one of my ‘contemplative’ episodes that I suddenly thought of the final technique I’m now using which is illustrated in the centre diagram – instead of using groups of five rings, I’m now using smaller groups of three. It’s still a real headache to get them to lie flat in the varnish, but at least now its only three fifths of the headache it was before! The effect of this arrangement can be seen in the final Photo 15. As you can see, I still manage to get that all-important ‘linked’ effect but with less swearing and cursing than before. The group of test rings shown here is composed of three sets of the triple links.
The main thing this experimentation has taught me is that it is really important to work in lines of link-groups. You can’t cover a large(ish) area in one go, as applying the later rings simply means they get stuck to the earlier ones and pull them off, or at the least, out of position. Its going to be a case of do a line of links up against the armour then let them dry completely before starting the next group butting up against them. The next time you see this procedure in action it’ll be on the actual model – and it’s going to be a long slow process!!
In the next instalment, beginning the legs.

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

I'm sorry to say Robin but you're completely insane

Seriously though, you're skill and dexterity working with such tiny parts is awe inspiring. Your work is always so neat and tidy too

Just an apology - I've been having a bit of trouble with with my internet connection tonight - got halfway through posting this instalment and the page crashed - so I'll post this tonight and do most of the highlighting and grammar work tomorrow! (Finally finished Tue 25 Oct!!)

Before beginning the description of re-modelling Frederick’s legs, I forgot to include a specific photo in the section on the ring mail! As I mentioned in that instalment, there were two reasons why I couldn’t use my newly acquired Edwardian ‘chainmail’ purse – the first was simply I couldn’t bear to ruin such a beautiful piece of work, here’s the second as illustrated in Photo 1. In the centre of the photo is a section of the 1/12th scale mail as made up in the last chapter (sitting on the penny) in the background is the ‘other’ mail – not the full sized version pictured earlier but the intricate mini-mail from the ladies purse! As you can see, a little oversized for what I need but perfect for a 1/6th scale figure (Action Man sized) – which is why I’m still looking for some cheaply priced damaged mail purses or bags – something I wouldn’t feel guilty about cutting up!
As far as Frederick’s stance is concerned, I was in two minds, either to have him bracing himself towards the impacting crossbow bolts hitting his shield or else the opposite, recoiling away from the force of impact. Both versions would only require ‘surgery’ on one of the legs to put in a slight bend at the knee, bracing would require the left leg to bend, recoiling would need the right. In the even I decided on the recoil for a little more dramatic effect. In Diagram 2 we have the leg instructions from the Imai kit itself, a quite simple set up with just two basic leg halves, two inner foot bits, two outer armoured ‘boots’ or Sabatons (plus the ridiculous winkle pickers) together with a single knee joint protector and a movable hip joint. Construction begins with the movable inner foot pieces shown in Photo 3 with one having been glued together and the other still in two halves. The two hip joints would need some altering before they were encased inside the leg halves. Like the shoulder joints, these were designed to be secured in a glue-less joint within the two halves of the torso but as I was gluing the torso right from the start, the inner flange would have to be cut and sanded away, converting this joint into a simple ‘plug’ to be glued in place later. One of the hip joints is seen converted in Photo 4. Moving on to the two leg halves, I decided to work on the non-bent left leg first, the two halves of which are shown still on the sprue in Photo 5. Note all those moulded on straps, all of which have to be sanded down and replaced later on with real leather versions. Note especially that double ‘rim’ effect at the top of the lower leg armour or Greave. I had assumed that this was in fact some fancy design on the armour itself – further checking of the reference photos however revealed that there was actually a leather strap there so I cut away the top rim – only to find out then it was the bottom rim which was the strap (the armour was moulded with a rivet on the lower one which should have been a clue!) Not to worry though, in actual fact this mistake has proved quite useful, as you’ll see later. Photo 6 shows another of the moulded straps, this one down at ankle level. Before any alterations can begin, the first job is to actually glue the two halves of the legs together. The foot and hip joints were pressed into position as shown in Photo 7 and then the two halves were glued in place using Revell Contacta liquid poly glue as in Photo 8. As you can see in that photo, we are left with a quite prominent seam line. Photo 9 illustrates the beginning of the clean up process with the left leg looking a little better than the right with the diamond dust files and fine sandpaper used in the clean up laying alongside. The real work can now proceed with the removal of the moulded on straps (marked by ‘x’ in Photo 10). As shown previously, the ends of the straps are drilled out before sanding away in order to replace the moulded rivet with a brass one later. Photo 11 shows the left leg closest with the straps sanded down and the ‘unstarted’ right leg behind. Note on the top leg that double strap moulding and on the bottom leg I’ve ground away what I thought was the strap (but actually wasn’t!) This is shown more clearly in Photo 12 on the half leg whilst it was still on the sprue: a) is the part I thought was a strap or a fancy double rim to the greave whilst b) is the actual strap and c) is the calf position strap. These correspond with the actual armour shown in Photo 13. You can see the error in Photo 14 along with the unaltered right leg – I’ve ground away a) after drilling a hole for the rivet which should of course be in line with b), c) is correct though! I’ve finally managed to find a better photo of the knee area, which shows the correct positioning of the straps etc, this is shown in Photo 15. So, with the ‘ehem’ errors discovered it was time to put them right before carrying on. The first task was to fill in the incorrect rivet holes, actually the very first task was to drill in the correct ones! Then I filled in the first set by the simple use of a short bit of sprue from the kit itself. This was heated over the tea-light candle and once softened, stretched out by about six inches. For once however, I wasn’t after the thin filament of stretched sprue – it was the two ends which are normally discarded after stretching. As you can see in Photo 16, I cut off the thin bit about an inch and a half from the end and gently pushed the point into the wrongly drilled hole until it fitted snugly in. I then marked where it came to the edge of the hole, and snipped off the excess leaving about a quarter inch beyond the mark. A quick dab of Humbrol Liquid Poly on the pencil mark and the ‘prong’ was pushed back into the hole and left to dry for a few hours. Once the welded plug was completely set the protruding part was sliced off with a sharp knife and the filled in hole sanded back smooth with very fine sandpaper as seen in Photo 17. This photo also shows the missing top of the greave and the lower moulded strap, which has now been sanded down flush with the armour. The missing part of the armour has now been re-created using a simple little sliver of the tuna tin metal (which you will see in the next instalment). Not only does this replace the ground away plastic original but it also provides a much more 3D effect in this area than the moulded part did before. So you can see, sometimes a mistake is just another unplanned improvement!
In the next instalment, continuing with the alterations to the right leg and some drilling and filing to Frederick’s ‘battle boots’!

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!


Robin.

Sorry to hear about your mum Robin and hope she feels better soon

Yet another stunning update brilliantly done my friend look after your self m8.

Rgd Martyn

Hi Robin.
Fantastic work and some really nice attention to detail. look forward to seeing more. Ian