Really great work robin

Lovely work Robin, great to see how it’s done.

Mark

Many thanks indeed to Kev, Phil, Al, Ian, Mr T, Mark and Paul! I am pleased with the first of the hollow castings (and also with the second one shown below!) I've been struggling along with trying to replicate the Lee Enfield at the moment, even though I don't get to that part until much later! It's finally coming together now thank goodness!
In designing the floppy jungle hat I considered a great many different methods of constructing the prototype including fashioning it from lead sheet or heat-softened plasticard. In the end however, I found the exact thing that I needed to make a perfectly good Chindit hat – out in the old aviary flight! Like many others, in my childhood I had an Action Man (or two). One of the first uniform sets I bought was the Australian Jungle Fighter, complete with flamethrower, machete and, the famous Aussi slouch hat! I came across some of my old Action Man kit a couple of years ago and remembered seeing the slouch hat among the items so I went back in for another look and Bingo! Found it first time, together with a silver plastic grenade, which might come in handy later. Unfortunately, the machete which would definitely have come in very useful, is long gone. Although many of the Chindits wore the same slouch hat in the Aussi style, I wanted to model mine under the more iconic ‘all round’ brim. This meant after about fifty years in pristine condition, apart from the cobwebs and mice droppings that is, the first thing I had to do was to pull the folded up ‘slouch’ side of the brim away from the tiny rivet holding it in place. Then, after removing the simple cloth ‘pugaree’ band and giving the hat a good scrub in soapy water I placed it into hot, almost boiling water for a few minutes to soften the plastic before placing it on the hollow resin head and gently folding the brim down around the face. Once the shape looked about right the head and attached hat were dunked into cold water, which instantly ‘froze’ the supple plastic into shape. The finished appearance is shown in Photo 1 and placed back on the head in Photo 2. You can see the metal rivet and the hole it once sat in on the side of the hat. The next task was to create the moulding box to make the first initial casting. First it would need a good thick plasticene base to sit on as shown in Photo 3. As this was also going to be a hollow casting in Roto Resin, the little raised ‘plinth’ under the brim was necessary to allow the liquid resin to run around the lip during the rotating mould technique (similar to the neck plug on the head). The main plasticene base layer was cut to fit the lego brick box as illustrated in Photo 4 and the mixed silicone rubber and catalyst was then poured into the box which was removed after the rubber had cured leaving the first, basic mould shown in Photo 5. I had to do a little trimming on the inside of the hat, I hadn’t expected the liquid rubber to be thin enough to penetrate the rivet hole in the side or the tiny crack in the top of the hat crown – but some of it did! Fortunately not too much and after stretching the excess rubber and slicing it away the hat original came out smoothly. The actual intention for this mould was to make a solid resin cast first to remove the imperfections (rivet and hole) and also to fashion the pugaree windings, I did however try a hollow casting first just to see what the pitfalls might be in an open ended hollow cast. It actually went quite well overall but did teach me that the weakest part of the casting is the right angle where the flat brim joins the vertical crown part. The liquid resin naturally flows away from the angle to settle on one or the other of the flat areas – still, it was strong enough to remove from the mould which was good. The solid resin cast is shown in Photo 6. The rivet and hole has been sanded smooth and filled with Deluxe Perfect Plastic Putty, and then sanded smooth again once dried. The pugaree bands have been created with the DecraLed strip, starting at the top band and working down, slightly overlapping each succeeding band. Photo 7 shows the first trial hollow casting from the basic mould, as well as simply proving that the hollow form of the hat was possible to cast, I was also able to utilise this one to try out the trimming to size techniques. As you might be able to see on this trial, using just a craft knife resulted in an off angle cut at the edge of the brim. I found that a combination of knife work together with the micro-scissors gave the neatest border – (better to learn that on the ‘throwaway’ piece!) Once the detailing was complete the resin cast was returned to the lego box and plasticene base. This time however, to cut back on the amount of silicone rubber required I cut four lengths of Upvc beading and placed one in each corner – that saved about 15% of the silicone as illustrated in Photo 8. Photo 9 shows the final hollow casting with the excess resin around the brim successfully cut back and sanded smooth. The six ventilation holes in the crown were also drilled out for a better effect. The last two photos, Photo 10 and 11 show the finished hat casting on the head. These are actually two different heads – the first one was the trial casting, this had a couple of small holes which were filled in with an inner skin of standard beige coloured resin (just visible around the ear and chin). This head has had the top cut off which is why the hat is at the correct angle, the second head is the better casting with four layers of Roto resin (and no holes) and hasn’t yet been ‘scalped’ – that’s why the hat is slightly skewed over to one side!
With the head and hat complete, it’s now time to plan out the changes required to the action figure torso – more on that next time!

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Lovely work Robin, looks excellent so far.

Mark

Many thanks again to Paul, Mark, Kev, Mr T and Godan! That hat has certainly saved a lot of extra work though the time saved has all been used up in finally getting the Lee Enfield rifle to the point where I can finally cast it successfully - you'll be seeing how further down the line! I'm just waiting for the last part of the torso base mould to set now before attempting to hollow cast that one ready for the Milliput sculpting. The problem is, I can do the 'undercoat' sculpt but the actual modelling of the shirt with it's folds and creases can't proceed until I've created a full set of webbing since that will need to be pressed down into the 'cloth' to create the proper effect! So belt, braces, basic pouches, bayonet and ammo bandolier all to follow!
The first task to begin the creation of the basic torso was to remove the three small screws holding the two halves of the groin together. Once removed the two parts could be separated as shown in Photo 1. This also released the two legs, which were held in by a simple axle plug, you can just make out half of the locating hole for those on the front groin section on the far right. Next I had to remove the arms and also the neck/head articulation joint. This was achieved by removing the five screws on the upper back of the torso to expose the whole upper articulation system. As you can see, the arms locate with the same axle plugs as the legs, whilst the head joint is a simple ball and socket joint. Note also a second ball and socket which sits in a square locating hole in the centre of the chest. This allows the lower abdomen to pivot sideways and doesn’t have to be touched for this model (Photo 2). With the arms and groin removed the torso was screwed back together leaving me with the section as shown in Photo 3. Unfortunately, I couldn’t just make a mould of this as it was – notice the big gap between the upper and lower abdomen! Pour liquid silicone rubber over this and most of it will vanish up inside leaving not a half mould as intended, but half the torso permanently embedded in a block of rubber! The solution, as illustrated in Photos 4 and 5 is to fill in that gap with a white silicone sealer as used in bathrooms and kitchens. It was applied from the tube with the ‘grease gun’ applicator and simply smoothed into place with a finger tip, at the same time a good ‘dollop’ of the stuff was also used to fill in the open neck cavity as well. This can be seen in Photo 6 along with two small squares of the aluminium tape I bought to make the Sopwith Pup’s front cowling pushed over the arm holes at the shoulders. I used the tape because I could press it down into the holes leaving an impression which will be replicated in the resin casting providing a locating indicator for when the re-modelled arms go back on. The last addition before beginning the silicone mould was a plasticene plug on the bottom of the torso as shown in Photo 7, this will be the ‘lip’ of the mould when the liquid Roto Resin is spread around inside. A larger pad of plasticene was pushed into place and then trimmed back with a big ex-kitchen carving knife (don’t worry – Mum gave it to me!) Learning from the head mould I first poured a quantity of rubber into the mould and let it cure to provide a base for the back of the torso to lay on. The rubber is being poured in Photo 8 and this is where the first problem I’ve had with the rubber came about. You might have noticed that all the preceeding moulds had been a pale blue – the blue catalyst ran out on the last one so I switched over to the red catalyst that came with the big 2kg tub of silicone. The blue one used to cure in a few hours, the next day after I poured this out the rubber was still soft like a blancmange! I double checked to make sure that it would cure at 2% catalyst and that was fine. It then dawned on me that the last few nights have been getting colder and colder and I think the problem is that right after pouring the rubber and then closing up the attic workroom for the night it almost got down to just above freezing up there. I subsequently brought the mould down and left it over a radiator, within a few hours it had cured properly. From now on I’ll be bringing the moulds down to cure in the warmth. The finally set rubber base is shown in Photo 9 whilst the actual first half of the mould around the torso is shown after pouring in Photo 10. You can’t actually see the torso as it’s covered by a heavy steel plate. I was happily pouring in the rubber when I realised that it didn’t seem to be covering the bottom half of the plastic torso. I mixed up some more and whilst pouring that in realised that the darned thing was rising upwards as I poured. By sealing up all the holes I’d made the hollow torso airtight and it was just floating on top of the liquid rubber. By placing the steel plate on top the torso was pushed down to rest on the cured rubber base allowing the silicone to come up to the half way point and set (over the radiator again).
In the second part, the other half of the mould is formed and the first resin section is cast ready for the head to be fitted on.

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Looking good Robin. Great to see how the casting is being done. Ian

Looking good Robin, great skill, love what you are doing.

Mark

Hi Robin
Action man, Lego, Plasticine and Silicone, who,d have thought you'd be mucking around with this stuff as a kid putting Airfix together, Brigadier Orde Charles Wingate would be proud of you mate.
Regards
Paul

Many thanks indeed to Andy, Ian, Gray, Mark, Chris, Paul and Mr.T! Many apologies for the delay since the last installment, unfortunately I'm currently in the throes of winter bug No.2! No vomiting this time round thank God, just pounding headaches, blocked nasals and a rotten irritating cough. I saw that new ad Mr T! Absolutely brilliant, the first time I just watched it for the sheer enjoyment, the second time I was counting as many of the uniforms I had as a child as I could - scuba diver, astronaut and tank commander for starters!
Anyway, before the next coughing fit here's my own Head and Shoulders ad!

Going back to Kev’s suggestion a couple of installments ago about drilling a hole to pass a metal rod through to support the head whilst making the silicone mould, Photo 11 shows what I could have used to do something similar! Back when I was experimenting with the first moulds for the Sopwith Pup details, I made this piece of three Lego bricks superglued together with a hole drilled through to accept a plastic syringe for ‘resin injection’. If I’d thought about it I could have used this group with a wooden dowel and metal pin to support the head – ah well, hindsight is a wonderful thing!
Photo 12 shows the first half of the torso mould after the silicone had finally cured and the metal plate removed. To make the second half, I needed to break down part of the Lego box to expose the edges of the rubber which were then carefully sliced along to remove a strip along the four sides together with a joining strip from around the four Upvc quadrants. These will provide the locating lugs to keep the two halves of the mould tightly aligned during the Roto resin casting. The strips are shown in Photo 13 just after the whole of the exposed rubber surface was given two good coats of liquid wax release agent before rebuilding the box up to the level required for the second pouring of the silicone. The final, two part mould for the basic torso is shown in Photo 14 with the first attempt at hollow casting the torso shown in Photo 15. Although it looks perfectly formed in this shot, when I removed the resin casting from the mould, the back of the torso was very thin (with a few actual gaps) along the join of the upper and lower sections of the torso. The solution was quite simple – I placed the casting back in the mould, mixed up a small quantity of the Roto resin and poured it into the hollow casting, leaving the mould propped up in such a position that the liquid resin collected and cured over the thin area.
Photo 16 illustrates the finished hollow casting after repairing that back section. Now it was finally time to remove the waste resin from around the neck of the head, this is shown under way in Photo 17 and was accomplished with a diamond dust cut off disc on the rotary tool. Note here how thick the resin actually was at the front of the chest/neck! Once the head was trimmed to shape I then razor-sawed the neck off from the torso. I had thought once the neck was removed I could simply place the head over the torso, draw around it and cut the torso to shape – it proved to be far more difficult than that unfortunately and involved a continual game of ‘remove a little, pencil in the shape and remove a little more’! Eventually I arrived at a fairly good fit to mating the resin head into the resin torso and the final ‘cut’ is shown in Photo 18. After cutting away the head resin I discovered that my set of Jak diamond dust engraving bits had a tiny little packet of various sized cut off discs. The one shown on the right is the smallest of the set and was a lot easier to manoeuvre into the resin than the much bigger one I’d used on the head! Photo 19 shows a dry fit of the head onto the torso, the front ‘V’ shape is a pretty good fit overall, there’s a slight gap around the back but most of that will be filled in with epoxy glue joining the two sections together and the eventual skin of Milliput will cover up everything in time. Finally, Photo 20 shows the head glued in place and the worst of the gaps filled in with Deluxe ‘Perfect Plastic’ putty. No point in going overboard with the sanding down for the reasons just mentioned.
Now before I can start mixing up the Milliput (I hate that job) I’ve got to fabricate the webbing straps which will be placed over the sculpted shirt and pressed down into the putty whilst it’s still a little soft, so in the next installment I’ll be starting the Pattern ’37 Webbing and associated equipment. (Just finished a lovely P’07 Bayonet, which I’m really pleased with!)

Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.