captain america

Many. But if you have to ask at all, I take that as a good sign Truthfully, many of the "concessions" are in the cockpit area, as what you see in the line art and the dimensional shape of the cockpit conflict greatly; a little bit like if you were shown a small camping trailer from the outside, and then a photo of the inside, showing lots of space with a full kitchen and a waterfall; you know the two just don't add up.

There's a possibility that I'll be able to extend the run to 30 in stead of 20. Some of the larger molds are currently at their mid-life point and are holding up nicely, though I will err on the side of caution and wait before accepting any new orders. Total with shipping has yet to be determined, as I don't yet have full kits that I can weigh for postage. Edit: as for how well this will display with 1/60 Valks, that's entirely subjective. The "purists" will say that my Graug is way too big for 1/72, but that's just two-dimensional thinking. I actually think it'll look fine next to either 1/72 or even 1/60 scale, though a closed cockpit would be better for the latter.

+1 what Cobywan said. The closest thing I use to a clear resin is Smooth Cast 327, which is actually a hazy amber color, and still very tempermental to use, but it does seem to work well with my tin-based Bluestar silicone.I've tried virtually ever clear resin by every company that my distributors carried, and I hate them all; always very tempermental mix ratios, soft castings, even after post-curing, highly viscous, unmanageable gunk and unGodly long demold times.

I have a preference for silicone molds and polyurethane resin casting material; the resins I happen to be using for this project are all Smooth-On products, as pictured below.

Possibly by the end of next week; I will have about a dozen kits done by then. Be warned though, the shipping charge might be on the staggering side: so far, one kit (partially molded) weighs in at about 1.1kg--just resin, no box or packing material; with full parts, we might be looking at over 1.5kg of solid resin, plus packaging.

Oh, and an early sample of the box art

THe last 2 pix

Today's update: Prelude To A Finale!! As usual, I've been up to my armpits with molding and casting, and today, I will touch on some of the more noteable points of the mold-making process. Disclaimer: the techniques I use are those that I've developed to work with my own style & habits for my own particular needs; these techniques may or may not be optimal for everyone. Anyhoo, on to the good stuff... Pic 1: the first thing that needs to be done is the attachment of vents and gates to all parts. This is a very time-consuming step, as it requires lots of careful studying of the part, and gate placement is critical, lest ye be happy with half-cast or improperly cast parts. I like to use hot glue to attach the gates, since they can be easily removed while doing little damage to the master. Pic 2: depending on the shape and geometry of a given part, it's sometimes necessary to fill-in or cover certain openings to ensure a succesful molding and casting. I like to use a bit of diluted white glue to seal-up little cracks and gaps, the kind you get when you glue two parts together. Otherwise, the mold rubber will leak into the gap and rip your master apart upon demold. Not fun. Pic 3: Once all the sprues & vents are attached, the master is placed upside down on a hard, flat surface and glued with hot glue. Depending on the complexity of the shape, you may want to make some markings to guide you when you slice the mold open later. Pic 4: Once the part is securely fastened to a base, I construct a mold box to go around it: my material of choice is plexiglass, which I glue with CA at the corners. Once the box is done and secured to the base with hot glue, it's just a matter of pouring the rubber. Pic 5: these are my two pressure chambers, that are used not only for casting, but the small unit also does double-duty as a vacuum chamber. Pic 6: once molds have been opened, masters removed and allowed to dry out, actual casting can begin... This is what I've done in about a week, and this is just the beginning!

Yes it will. You essentially can build it 3 ways: cockpit closed, cockpit open (no pilot) and cockpit open (with pilot.)

Helmut Hedd it is, then!

Oh, one other thing: would you guys prefer Quamzin to have the helmeted or unhelmeted head? IdeallyI would've done both, but frankly, I'm pushing 20 molds and about 100 parts as it is.

I don't know about the masterpiece part, but the sculptor is definitely insane

3 more.

Ahoy kids! As you may or may not know, our beloved musical is nearing the final curtain, but the obese Meltran hasn't sung... Yet As such, I offer the last few photos of the masters before I commit them to rubber. More precisely, the cockpit: the nerve centre of the whole kit. As always, there are a few parts not attached (like Quamzin's blast shield) but the bulk of it is there. I've elected to show a few "half enclosed" pics, so that Quamzin can be seen more clearly. Surprisingly, the cockpit doesn't look as tight as I thought it would in pictures... But between you and me, there isn't a chance in frack that Quamzin could ingress & egress the cockpit without hacking-off a few of his limbs Also, as it was requested earlier, I will make the final build report on the molding process, or at least, a semi-detailed overview of it, which should be done by next week. In the meantime, please enjoy the pics!

+1. To be honest, I feel that the Tanmen kits are actually a bit of a let-down, especialy when you look at the beautiful stuff to come out of Japan in later years.

Oops! Last pic.

Hi everyone. Guess what? I'm not done yet I'm getting there, though. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel... Or is it the headlight of an oncoming train? Regardless, the devil's hands have not been idle and in fact, I was pulling extra hours to get the project to a more comfortable level of completion. This will be a mini-update until my projected completion of the masters, which I should have done by the 7th of this month. Right off the bat, I can say with complete confidence that this has probably been my most elaborate project since my 1/8 Indycars, and certainly the crown-jewel of my Macloss 1/72 line. So what have I been up to, you ask? Molding. Lots of molding. This is one of those rare projects where I felt compelled to start molding before all the masters were complete, simply because of the very high number of molds needed. This also gives me a much-needed break in the routine, and I am now able to concentrate on the cockpit details with my mind at ease. If you look at the first pic, you'll see a part that is being prepped for molding; one of many in a very long process that requires much attention to detail and concentration. As you can see, I begin by attaching the vents and gates to the part with some hot glue: I almost never attach the sprues/gates permanently, as their easy removal is a critical aspect of demolding that greatly facilitates the latter. This particular part (the main engine housing) is also one of many that requires what I call double-filling, due to it having cavities on opposing sides. As such, I must begin by using a small amount of mold rubber to fill one cavity, allow it to harden sufficiently, and then affix the part to the mold base and finish the pouring of the rubber.Roughly half of the parts I've molded so far required this technique, and then needed to be duplicated for the opposite side, which more than doubles my regular molding time. Pic 2: here are the molds I have so far, and as you can see, there are a lot---and I'm not done yet!! I estimate that the whole Graug will have 18-20 molds in total, and what I have so far required about 10-12kg of rubber. In addition, some of the parts (lower legs, cannons, etc) required me to custom-fabricate mold boxes from plexiglass, so that's another job that devours time. Pic 3: here are some preliminary test-shot pieces, which I'm happy to say, came out beautifully! Pic 4: the leg molds were the ones that worried me the most because of their size, the fact that they required a vertical molding, and lots of resin, but I'm happy that the extra time I invested to get them molded properly bore fruit. Notice the massive sprues at the bottom of the leg on the right. Pic 5: this is the left upper-thigh, one of the dozen or so components that will be cast in high-strength polymer. This particular part will also require acrylic inserts during the molding process. I made a backup copy of it because the molds were a bit touchy to make. That's about all I have to show for now. I will try to go a little bit deeper into the molding process for the next update, and hopefully by then I'll be showing-off the completed masters as well. Wish me luck

I love Regults! At some point, I'd like to do a version 2.0 kit with at least one of the two engines that has removeable panels to show-off the inner mechanism; useful for maintenance or battle-damage dios and such.

I haven't put nearly enough engrish verbage on my boxes lately, so hopefully you'll be happy to hear that I plan to reinstate my "pro-engrish" poricy for the Graug

Yeah, you just don't get any respect as a warmonger when you have to rely on public transit Ray, I absolutely love the colors you chose for the figure! Are these your own recipe, or straight out of the bottle?

The arm cannons actually look a lot like funky speakers to me... And at that size, the speakers could probably do as much damage as a beam blast. "LISTEN TO MY SONG!!!!!!!" **BAM**

Interesting to note that I have strategically hollowed-out some parts of the leg, turning some of the obvious panel lines into hatches, just as I feel they would be on the real deal. There are actulally many detail pieces that I left off, simply because of the fragility of everything, and the fact that there are sooo many parts in the kit that it will be quite a challenge to keep track of. In fact, the Graug will have more parts than the full cockpit Regult, and 3 times as much resin. Joy!

A closer look at some of the detail bits...

Once again, apologies for the poor quality of the pics. I don't have good lighting at my place for pics, and the red primer just makes it that much worse.

Hi folks! I realize that I've not been terribly present on the forums lately, but there's a good reason for it: I've been super-detailing the Glaug, and the process has been quite long. Nevertheless, I have a whole slew of (mediocre) pictures of my progress. I would have prefered to use more grey primer, since it photographs much better than the red stuff, but the local supplier was out... Essentially, I only have the cockpit thingamabobs left to do now, which I will get onto in parallel with my mold prep for the parts that need duplicating. It would be no exaggeration to say that one set of Glaug masters takes almost as much work as three Destloids... But it's worth it