Wednesday Workbench 31 August 2022

 

A week later than I'd said, I'm back to posting. There's been no progress on the German AFVs - I've hit a bit of a block on them, so they've gone into a drawer until I get my mojo back.

In their place on the workbench are the TAG figures - I'll start work on them tomorrow, adding basing gunk. I should get them primed on Friday, then I can sort out which figures will go to which squads.

3D Printing

I've printed a few more Traveller ships, four from the classic rules and a fifth which is a Traveller-ized version of one of 2nd Dynasty (the 3D company) designs. I have a few more to do before I tackle the big beast - the Laboratory ship.

Paint Table Saturday 13 August 2022

 

Errrmmmm.....

As you probably expected, I still haven't finished working on the German AFVs. 

"What on Earth has she gone and done to them?"

I suspect you are worried that I went completely mad. However, this photo was taken a few minutes later:

I was doing oil dot filter weathering. After applying small dots of oil paint, you then take a dry (or barely moistened with thinners) brush and scrub like mad. The end result is somewhat faded and varied base colours. During the scrubbing process a few bits did come off the StuG - those have since been re-glued.

I have prepped the figures from The Assault Group and made a start on the basing (OK, I've glued the figures onto the bases - I still need to add basing gunk and then prime them).

3D Printing

Over the course of this week I've printed a few more 1:270 scale Traveller ships:

I've got a few more to print, but they'll have to wait as I'm going on holiday. My next post will be a Wednesday Workbench on the 24th. Hopefully the break will help me to regain my focus and I'll swiftly finish work on the German AFVs.

Paint Table Saturday 06 August 2022

 

As you can see, I'm still working on the vehicles for my Waffen SS force. I added the decals this week (I had to remove the stowage from one half track as it was in the way, then re-attach them once the decals had set), painted (most of) the non-airbrush details, then today I glossed them and did panel lining with thinned oil paint. Tomorrow I will hit them with a coat of matt varnish to seal in the oils.

Progress has been slow, mostly because I've been busy reading a very big book - a volume of the official history of the Australian army in WW2. However, I do plan to kick myself into a higher gear over the next few days and should get them finished before Wednesday. I also plan to get the reinforcements prepped and primed before next weekend.

I'm still busy with the 3D printing. I printed two more starfighters this week:

I had to reprint multiple parts due to print failures. The failures were a result of one thing for sure and another that I suspect. The suspicion one is that the stringing I was seeing was the result of the slightly higher humidity we had mid-week. That wouldn't have been enough on it's own, but would have exacerbated the real culprit which I discovered when I swapped filament spools and did some general cleaning and maintenance. 

It seems that a couple of the tightening wheels had loosened since I last checked them - the one on the right hand side of the X-axis gantry arm was free spinning and the one for the print head had loosened enough for the head to wobble. 

The first wouldn't have been a problem on a dual Z-axis printer, but mine is a single Z-axis so a loose wheel on the other side can cause the X-axis gantry to sag down to the right as the print head moves across, resulting in the nozzle catching against prints and pulling them off the print bed. The second can also cause catching, but is usually less of a problem.

I got both of those tightened and checked all the other wheels - they were all fine.

After loading new filament, running the auto-leveling and printing my standard test pieces for new filament I started work on my next printing project:

These are the 1:270 scale models of Traveller ships which I bought through a Kickstarter. Well, the first few anyway (and the two identical ones are actually parts of a larger model). I've got a lot more to print, and then I have some non-Traveller ships as well in the same scale.