And now for something different

My latest purchase over the weekend. My 1993 Ford Mustang GT 5.0L Automatic. The interior looks like it's just about brand new, it has 143,000 miles on it, BBK stainless steel headers, BBK cold air intake mounted in the fender, Flowmaster down turned mufflers, & a Sony CD player.

Things that need to change: the automatic needs replaced with a 6 speed Cobra transmission, AirRide suspension setup, Outlaw hood with a 4" or 6" cowl, change the paint to Red (special red that I've been wanting to use), and maybe a body kit for the car too.

Things that need fixed: Starter selenoid is sticking a little bit on startup, there is an exhaust leak somewhere in the system, no cup holders, & glare from top of dash on the drivers side windshield.

Updates to the Hot Wire Table

This is going to be a pain in the butt to blog, cause I'm doing this from my iPhone. Someone forgot the laptop this week, and my extra iPhone charger so I might run out of battery on the iPhone too.

Anyways; on the table I cut an access panel in the table top, this along with bending the eyelet to form a hook makes setting up the Hot Wire easier. Also I've cut out some hardboard templates for Modular Terrain, which after some sanding work really good. But more on that after some more practice with them. Also a jig was setup too do pre-made wires for the table, still figuring out what knot works best for the wires. Tested the circle cutter jig, worked really good just need to unhook the power at the end of the cut. Otherwise the wire will burn into the foam circle, which a simple toggle switch on the power will solve that problem. Which I'm still working out the power connections within the table, need to find or get some wires for the table.

Hot Wire, Modular Terrain, & Friends

Well more work was completed on the Hot Wire Table this weekend, and a handheld Hot Wire Cutter. The work done on the Hot Wire Table (forgot to take pictures) was a 6" extension to the upright on the arm of the table, and cut the top eyelet on the arm so that it's now a hook instead of just a loop. The hook will now provide easy and much quicker wire changes on the table, still need to cut the eyelet on the bottom part of the table. But that will come with some changes to where the wire goes through the table, which will allow easier wire changes. Then I also crafted a circle cutting attachment for the table which has basically settings for inch and half inch circle cutting.

And for the handheld Hot Wire I crafted it from the same Birch Plywood as was used in the table, making the shape basically match an over sized hacksaw. It functions almost like a hacksaw with a wire in place of a blade, which if you tried to use a regular hacksaw for this you could have good results depending on what your were wanting to cut with it. I was looking to make a cutter that would allow me the make a 90 degree cut on one end of the handheld, but that didn't work as I had planned. So I'll have to go back to the drawing board on that one, but the handheld worked for making cuts straight across the ends of the saw (just not for the 90 degree). Also the wiring system of the handheld needs worked out, as right now it's just the alligator clips off the table. But I did have an interesting idea last nite, I'm sure me or someone I know has a broken cordless power tool somewhere. So the idea is to take the cordless and use the handle and battery pack out of it and put it to the handheld Hot Wire frame. Then make the power level of the battery pack adjustable if needed, and maybe make it where the normal finger trigger still operates the Hot Wire.


And finally something with some pictures, more on the Modular Terrain. I bought another rattle can of stone texture, and this time I decided to try it directly on the foam. On a previous terrain piece I covered plain white foam with non shrinking spackle and then sprayed on the stone texture, which worked really good and gave the look of concrete on the city ruins piece. Also I used some stone texture on my GW Battle Board on the exposed rock sections, which the Battle Board was inspiration for what I wanted to do for the Modular Terrain. Except I wanted something that was more user friendly, like not having your miniatures slide from the top of a hill to the bottom of the board. Also hopefully something that is lighter then the extruded plastic of the Battle Board, even though the heavy plastic is nice for use just around the home or not to far down the road.

The second picture below is where I was able to cut with the handheld Hot Wire, it's a ways from being complete. But if I can't get the handheld to cut a 90 degree angle on the end then I might have to scrap plans of making the hills out of 2" foam like that. But it might be easier to use 1" foam to get what I'm looking for, just have to try out the poly Gorilla Glue to join them. More to come on both Hot Wire Cutters and the Modular Terrain.



I'd like to thank my close friends that have helped on the Hot Wire Cutters.

Travis and myself have grown up and went to school together from K-12, we have not always been friends. We were sort of friends in the later years of High School, but didn't become Best Friends until after we worked together a year after High School. We both did construction work for my uncles General Contracting company, Travis still works for my uncle's company and we remain Best Friends since I've moved to another job. Travis has helped me build the table version and is helping work out electronic issues on the power system.

Adam is a friend that I knew from before in Boy Scouts in the area, and at one point him and my sister dated when they were younger. He has since went and served in the armed forces, and started working the same job as myself only a few months after I was hired on. Adam also has some construction background, but he also likes doing woodworking as Travis & myself do. He has a small custom woodworking trim shop, and is trying to expand into custom cabinets at some point. Adam has helped with giving a new look on some ideas I've had about hobby items and on the Hot Wire Table, it's always good to see what others come up with for the same problems. And hopefully with Adam's cabinet making expansion he'll be able to get a CNC Router table that he wants. As we have both had some interesting ideas on items to crank out on it; surprising Adam was first to suggest cutting foam with it, I was thinking of some nice detailed work on display cabinets for miniatures with the CNC Router.

And I would like to thank Jon for getting my into playing Warhammer 40k, as without that I would not of been lead down this path. Jon is a really good friend & gamer to play against, and Jon has a great son that is another good friend & gamer. I always look forward to getting together with them hopefully once a year or more to play some games.

DIY - Hot Wire Table, Start of Modular Terrain, & Climbing Holds

First off; it's been awhile since the last post on the blog, not very much if at all has been going on in my hobby world. But hopefully that will all change soon enough, I've got a lot of projects on the back burner & that keeps growing month to month.

Any ways, this weekend my friend Travis and myself built my first try at a Hot Wire Table. It went as planned for the most part, but like anything else in life there is always room for improvement.
Materials used in the Hot Wire Table where:

• Birch Faced 5 ply Plywood for the frame and overhead arm
• 1/4" Peg Board for the table top
• Kreg Pocket Hole System to tie the frame work together and hide all the fasteners
• Eyelet screws for wire attachment
• Industrial Strength rene based alloy Hot Wire, which is supposed to hold up better then inconel wire.
• And a 6 volt AC Power Supply and connector out my broken Hot Wire Tool (snapped the wire in to cutting the first Modular Terrain section)
• Turn Buckle to provide tension to the arm and the wire
• 1/4" Dowel for the accessories for the table, like the fence to rip straight pieces
  

The whole deal went together really easy, the plan was based off the Makezine 5 minute Hot Wire Cutter with some improvements on the design. I framed in the base a little more and recessed the peg board in the frame, and added the cross braces to attach the bottom of the wire to instead of the bolt as in the Makezine design. Then on the overhead arm I change that from the Makezine design basically at first due to not being able to find the aluminum round bar around home, but then I also figured that I would need more strength in the arm too. I like to over build when I make something, so stronger is always better in my opinion. At first just to try out the table we hooked up the previous Hand Held Hot Wire's power supply to the wire, which worked like a charm on the 2" Owens Corning Foam. Then the next day I received a Model Train control that was just like the Makezine one on their cover page picture, but it didn't really work to well with my setup. The Controller had a circuit protector that keep tripping in the middle of cutting the 2" foam, so we went back to the 6 volt AC power supply setup from before.

Like I said before; there is always room for improvement, and after using the table it was decided that the height of the arm needed to be raised. And I figured on doing an adjustable arm on it this coming weekend, that way I could make the wire almost whatever length I needed. This will help on doing free hand cuts and I can make sled to do different angle cuts, and I have some interesting ideas for the adjustable part that I need to hash out this week. I need to make the voltage adjustable with a dimmer switch or something, on the current setup it does good with 2" foam but on 1/2" foam it's way to hot. Which makes doing template cuts a lot harder, as the wire was trying to burn through the paper templates. And the peg board is not a super smooth surface, so at times the foam catches and burns in to far. Which if I really go into this project I'll make something for the table top with Melamine covered mdf plywood, and I'll imbed some t-track into the surface which will make the next improvement possible. Adjustable fence that is accurate, based off something that can be moved and locked down with the t-track. The small plywood fence in the picture is good for a quick cut, but it's not as accurate as I would like. And I need to make the table top big enough to cut down 4'x8' sheets of foam into 2' sections at least, this will help on making Modular Terrain Boards & for cutting down the foam to insulate between the studs on my motorcycle storage / small shop building.

As for the Modular Terrain, you can see one of the hill pieces that I sliced out on the Hot Wire Table in the above pictures. And right below is three preliminary hill pieces and one that was cut by the handheld Hot Wire I broke while making it and then finished off with a hand saw. To complete the cuts on the other pieces I need to build another handheld Hot Wire, which the friend and I brain stormed about that after the table was complete. And I need to figure out what I'm going to use to cover the foam so that it can be based and painted.


And as for the climbing holds, I had some ideas of using the 1/2" foam and the Hot Wire to make some basic shapes. And you can see two of those simple shapes in the table pictures above, then I glued the pieces together to form 1" thick and 1-1/2" thick pieces. Which once I make the mods to the current table, I'll be able to cut the foam pieces in two on a camber to form a real basic shape of the hold. And when I have the handheld Hot Wire worked out, I'll be able to finalize the their shapes and start to make molds of the holds. Then it's time for some trial and error testing to get the best mix for climbing holds that I want. Material wise I know that I'm not going with Bondo this time around, I had made some test climbing holds a few years back with Bondo. While they worked for how we had it setup at the time, it was not the best route and was difficult to get good results all the time due to the quick drying time of Bondo. I'm leaning towards using Smooth-On 300 series resins, with their color adders, maybe their resin fillers, and their mold making materials too. Their is also some climbing hold companies out there that are using Ceramic Coated Sand for filler and texture, so I'm also looking at finding some of that from a Pool Building Material Supplier.

Finally get a test game in with Dark Eldar & Grey Knights

This past Thursday I meet up with a good friend from Arizona that was in the Mid-West for work this week, so Thursday after work we meet up at the hotel he was staying in. After dinner that evening we went back to the hotel room and setup for a 750 point match with some options on what armies were used. At hand I had enough Grey Knights to make up three different 750 point lists I did on Army Builder, then I had a 750 point list for the Dark Eldar I had in mind, and finally I also brought what I originally was thinking was 750 points of the Toys for Tots Ultramarine army. The Grey Knights & Dark Eldar were freshly built and not painted yet other then a few old models from the past that were a poor paint job from me, the Ultra's were missing the Rhino's that were to be the transports for the Tactical Squads (my bad on not bringing them based off what Jon told me points wise on the lists).

So for the game we setup four of the Battle Board panels on the bed in the room as there really wasn't anything else that would work to hold the board other then on the floor. I gave Jon the choice on what army he wanted to use, and he decided to go with Grey Knights to test them out. I was set on taking either the Dark Eldar or the Grey Knights no matter what, I think the GK's were the better setup of the two lists we used. Jon setup the terrain while I sorted out the figures for both army lists, we rolled to see who was going first and Jon wins as normal (darn Halters and their ability to roll 6's). Setup was 1/4's of the board with one objective per army; Jon took the hill with more terrain close to it, so I received the almost blank opposite quarter of the board.

Lists:
GK: HQ-Crowe with 3x 5 man Purifier squads (2 Psycannons, Daemon hammer, Halbard KoF, & Sword) & one Psy-Rifleman Dreadnought.

DE: HQ-Baron with 5 man Hellions squad (no special weapons), one 5 man Hellion squad (Squad Leader upgrade with no special weapons), 5 man Trueborn squad with 3x Shardcarbine & 2x Splinter Cannon in a Venom (Flickerfield, Night Shields, two Splinter Cannon, Grisly Trophies), 5 man Scourge squad with 2x Splinter Cannon, and another 5 man Scourge squad with 2x Haywire Blasters.

As a note for this game, I'm sure that we messed up some of the rules & missed some of the special rules and items too in the game. Rules wise I'm sure that we played Warhammer 40k 5th ed, 4th ed, 3rd ed, FoW, and some random rules system thrown in for good measure. The main thing was that we were having fun playing a match verses each other, not really worrying about rules violations or competitive game play either. Since neither of us had used the two new codexes before the game went a little longer then normally it would of been.

Jon placed his GK on their hill with Dreadnought on his objective & the rest against what ever cover they could muster on his deployment area. I decided to put everything on the board with the Dark Eldar instead of holding most of them in reserves for Deep Strike (mistake one). Then I was able to seize initiative from Jon for going first, that was a first for all games that I've played against Jon. I start by moving the Venom & Trueborn into position to get clear shots at one of the Purifier Squads, and was able to score a kill on the Daemon Hammer guy. The Scourges with Splinter Cannons moved up to get shots on the same Purifier squad scoring another kill. The others move to cover and towards Jon's objective, leaving the 5 man Hellion squad on my objective. Jon's first turn he takes down the Venom with an Immobilized result, saved one of the other results. This is normal with any vehicle in a game I play against Jon, first turn my main skimmer or whatever goes down some how. Then his main focus was on the Scourge squads advancing towards him, taking them out one at a time.

My next turn I forgot to disembark the Trueborn from the Venom (mistake two), but my Scourges were able to take down another Daemon Hammer & some Psycannons. Splinter Cannon Scourges get stuck into combat with Purifiers but they tie with one killed on each side, Jon used the Cleansing Flame psychic power instead of Hammerhand on them (didn't produce any wounds on the Scourges that were not saved). Jon's turn started off and he blew up the Venom, causing one kill on a Shardcarbine & one Splinter Cannon. After this we traded shots and some Close Combat with to the end of the game. I was down to one Trueborn Splinter Cannon failing back off the board, so I let Jon roll to see if there was going to be a turn six. I don't think Jon was paying attention to the mission with the objectives, as when he rolled a two and the turn ended he was under the impression he had won. But it was really a tie, as the only thing on his objective was the Dreadnought that was not a scoring unit.

Like I said before, this was just a fun game to learn what these two armies can really do. And learn from my mistakes with the Dark Eldar and make changes to how I play them and what units I take for them. Main thing I would do different in this game would be holding the Baron & 5 man Hellion unit in reserve and Deep Strike them over by his objective. And hold the Scourge squad with the Haywire Blasters in reserve to Deep Strike in range of the Dreadnought.

As far as what I would change out unit wise in a 750 point DE list: well the Hellions and Baron would go away, as I think they are better suited in larger point games and in bigger groups with some save ignoring weapons to help them out. I'm thinking Wyches with save ignoring weapons in a Raider with Dark Lance would be a good replacement. Maybe take the Duke in this army to get the two die combat drug roll & put him with some Trueborn to get the 3+ poison weapon shots.

Here is parting pictures of the setup at the end of the game, mistake three not taking more pictures or notes of the game while we were playing.

Latest Project: Mega-Deff Dread

Here is some pictures of a conversion that I've been working on these past two weeks on and off, I still have some work to do to it before any primer hits it. Need to fill in a gap right above the legs, and figure out if I want to give him some foot peg extensions or let him hang there by the belt (which looks hilarious). And I still need to build an axe head for the right arm, then everything should be ready to button up and paint. So without further delay here is some of the pictures so far, and a link to the Photobucket Album for the Mega-Deff Dread.

Grey Knight Update

Well in the last post item number three in the list has had some progress made on it, the Grey Knights are coming back from a really long break from 40k for me.



After checking out all three of the new plastic kits for the Grey Knights I was hooked, so hooked that I decided to go out and try and build a new all plastic Grey Knight army. I'll still keep the old metal guys for now, and at some point maybe strip them down and redo their paint jobs. The old vehicles still need stripped down, and I need to see how difficult it will be for removing the Crusader Sponsons from the Land Raider. That way I put magnets on them & switch out the old metal Hurricane Bolters for some new plastic ones. Then I think I have another Land Raider kit laying around the house, and about three or so Rhino/Razorbacks there somewhere too.

I just received the last bunch of boxes this evening from Big Bang Game Store in Owensboro, KY. I have seven boxes of the regular Grey Knights, six boxes of Grey Knight Terminators, three boxes of Grey Knight Dreadknights, one Space Marine Venerable Dreadnought, and Lord Kaldor Draigo HQ figure. Now not all of these items are directly for the Grey Knights, as a few pieces and one kit will have a place in other armies. One of the Dreadknights is going to be converted into either a Deff Dread or Mega Dread for my Ork Army. And more then likely I'm going to use the back half of the torsos from a Grey Knight box to make some Blood Angel Libby's and one very special Salamander's Libby or two maybe based off the Salamander's Novels, and maybe one for my Toys for Tots Ultramarine's Army.



So far I've got one five man squad of Terminators complete, and expect to make one more to have a whole ten man squad. Then one ten man Paladin with one extra Apoth to split them into two separate five man squads. Then I'm still trying to figure out the way I want to go about making Ghost Knights, I would like to do clear cast Ghost Knights with maybe some light gray clouded into the castings as they are being poured. Not to bad since there since I figure I would really only need ten of them total to have a good number of regular, and a few different options to start the game with until Mordrak starts taking wounds.

Things to come:
I was able to get two of the Promethean Sun Novellas that went up for pre-order at 9AM GMT (3AM CST), took about 30 minutes to get everything worked out thanks to half asleep and the Black Library website getting bogged down from traffic. So that might be some good inspiration for a future Pre-Heresy Salamander's Army, with an eye towards future Horus Heresy era Salamander's Novels thanks to Nick Kyme.

I'm also working towards getting something done on item four from the previous post, as I've been getting a few more woodworking tools together the last few weeks. And the best friend at home bought a sanding station and scroll saw to go with the rest of our woodworking tools. And I bought a Kreg Pocket Hole jig with all the bells and whistles, and some more router bits for my routers. Next up is to get one of the Small 3D CNC Router machines from Sears Craftsman, to do some special wood work parts for the display cases. And one of the guys I work with has his own little setup of Woodworking goodness too, with a new Band Saw with power feed, and his massive trim milling machine that will crank out trim or planning boards in no time flat.

It's been awhile...

Like the title says, it's been awhile since my last post on here. Since October it's been kind of crazy with my job and life in general. I've sidelined the Astral Claws project for the moment, since I figured Forge World would come out with some more support for them since October. Well that has not happened for some reason, I figured at least some decal sheets or something. I have not worked on the Salamanders since I got back from the UK trip, I need to go in and complete them soon that way I can say they are complete up to 1,500 points at least.

We did get the Toys for Tots 2010 miniatures completed in time for the auction, my friend Jon & his son Jake did a really good job on the Tactical Squad I sent them. But I didn't get to see them in person before they went to California for the auction. I finished the other two Tactical Squads, two Rhinos, and two Dreadnoughts for the Ultramarine's Third Company. Once all the other miniatures from the Freebootaz Forum were received, they formed four Space Marine Company auctions and one for the scratch built Thunderhawk (which looked really good in the pictures). The auctions overall worked out really good and we raised a good bit of money for the Toys for Tots charity. And in the end I won back my Ultramarine Third Company miniatures, and received some very nice miniatures to go with it too. I was a really big fan of the Smurf Bastion and Papa Smurf Sergeant that freeboota "Crayolasmoker" converted and painted, he did a great job on them. Overall most of the miniatures were really great on their paint jobs, but a few of the miniatures seemed rushed and half of the vehicles had OK paint jobs.
So future plans for the Ultras is to redo some of the vehicles to make them so I can change out their setups for multiple use within the army, and try and bring all of the colors into one uniform color across all of the army. On the miniatures I'm going to redo the at least two of the squads and beef out some of them to fit into a ten man setup. And on the stuff I painted I'm going to finish doing the highlights and details that I rushed to get done. And on the Smurf Bastion, well I'm going to add another Smurf Bastion or terrain piece to complement it.

And this years Toys for Tots army is the Imperial Guard Cadians, and I think based on the sheer amount of Imperial Guard troops that it takes to flesh out an army this will be an amazing sight to see at auction. And given that this year the army was decided and announced before 2010 was done will hopefully bring a good amount of money to the Tots.

Whats on the desk at the moment?

As for what I'm currently working on, well being on the road and well over six hours from the house makes painting anything a pain in the butt. I was thinking of dragging my airbrushes and painting setup out to the apartment I'm renting, but I really don't have the room for it in a two bedroom apartment that I'm sharing with a guy I work with. So I really don't think it would be a good roommate to have my airbrush and painting setup out in the living room. So I can put together some plastic kits and try and get an army at least built and ready to start putting paint on them. And that army would be the Blood Angels that I collected bitz for there last year, and picked up one or two of the boxes that came out when their codex was released. Then here just a week or so ago I picked up some of the new releases for the Blood Angels, and have already learned some lessons on building them too.

Main Lesson: Just because it's a dreadnought doesn't mean the parts interchange without some modifications. The fronts for the Blood Angels Dreadnought kit will not fit right on the standard Space Marine Dreadnought body parts, and the back top piece on the standard Dread doesn't mate with the BA Dread fronts right way. With a few mods to the standard Dread body parts they will fit up really good, I worked fast to remove some things that were in the way and put the parts back together before the glue was dry. Good thing this was on the Death Company Dreadnought, and I can make some changes and shave some off the top to make it look good. I used the base Blood Angel Dreadnought parts to make a Furioso Libby Dread, so it turned out really nice and fit together with no problems.

So other then that I've been working on putting Assault Marines together, some Death Company Troops (like their details on the miniatures), and parts of a Stormraven. I'm thinking of making the Death Company guys with magnetic Jump Packs & Back Packs, so I can change them out for different load outs in armies. I was thinking of doing the same with the Assault Squads, but I don't think the standard Assault Marine torsos really go with a regular Back Pack. So I'm doing two 10 man Assault Squads with Jump Packs & one 10 man Assault Squad with Back Packs riding in a Rhino Transport. And I've got some more items coming hopefully if eBay and PayPal actually worked on my purchases and payments today.


Things I'm thinking of doing in the future:

1. Some kind of diorama with maybe two characters fighting a great battle, and hopefully If I do everything correctly I'll be able to use these two in armies of their own.
2. Complete my Dystopian Wars fleets (Prussian & Rising Suns) that I started late last year. I've already got two games in against Jon (FSE Fleet) & Jake (Britannia Fleet) at New Years, and was beat down for the most part (they understand the Spartan Games rule sets way better then me). I think they might be one of the next posts on the blog, once I get home and have time to snap some pictures of what I've got done so far. If you want to see some awesome Dystopian Wars stuff, then check out this link for Jon's FSE Fleet (they look awesome in person).
3. Grey Knights, can't wait to see what Games Workshop comes out with for the GK's. I'll have to see what the codex has for rules and figure out what I have to do to bring my previous GK army up to date with the new codex, and what cool new plastic kits they bring out. And to see if the new stuff will fit in with the old stuff, and I can foresee a Forge World order for some Grey Knight and Inquisitor stuff. And if the old fits in with the new, then I'm going to strip off all of the old paint and redo the whole army. If not then I might put them up on eBay or something to make room for new kits (I'm starting to run out of space at the house for my hobby stuff).
4. Display cases to put some finished items in and get out of the hobby room. So I'll have to put the woodworking skills to use, and finally use the equipment that I've been getting and buying over the years to use at the friends house (thank goodness he has a basement & a wife that doesn't mind the use or me, at some point I'll have a building just for our woodworking equipment). I would like to get one of the CNC 3D routers to do some symbols and icons within the Display Case wood. And being on the road all the time supplies the money to buy this, but the trade off is no time to use anything that I've bought.

Well until next time, keep the dice on the table.