First post in a while. There has been very little going on hobby-wise; that said i haven't really minded. Highlight possibly gluing up the AT-ST and carving a hole for it in the imperial faction box [where it now lurks unpainted, but out-of-mind]. Yep, real dull times.
Over the last couple of weeks there has been a renewal of interest in Battlefleet Gothic (BFG) emanating largely from the newcastle chaps, but i have also (via there) made some interesting contacts within Sydney's greater boundaries.
Theoretically i may make a road trip (great, cos i need more driving) up to NC this weekend [i did] and try to work out what's what with the game. Never actually played before, though it's been on the wish list forever.
Where am i going with this?
I've got my beginner fleet of Imperial ships ready, and figured i should get the bases rounded; it's part of the game mechanics and represents a region of influence - i.e. so it's important that they're round not square.
Some context info: The ship on top of the stick is not in any way to scale... the actual ship sits at the base of the stick and is smaller than the diameter of the stick... i.e. it's tiny. measurement is done from 'stalk-to-stalk' for ship-to-ship interaction. The area around the ship (i.e. the base) represents 'close enough', for something like i.e. a nuclear blast to possibly affect/damage the ship.
So, how hard could it be to chuck them in a drill of some kind and lathe them down with the dremel etc? How hard indeed?
The problem starts with getting a good grip on the sticky-outy bit that the stick slots into. It can pop out of the chuck pretty easily once you start applying cutting/grinding pressure, also centring it is problematic (it's not entirely cylindrical).
As we can see below i was able to get a result (all the ships at the back have new, round stands except the battleship).
My issue with the result is twofold (issues with the results are twofold?? eek grammar)...
It's rough... real rough in places. I'm kind of getting a technique working but it's not a nice result, even for use with print-proxy ships.
Aside from chips and clouding/melting i'm not getting a totally consistent diameter either. Below we can see that there's a gap between the 'arrow' on the left and on the right the 'arrow' is a bit chopped off. Basically a millimetre rim or gap all the way around.
At arms length, yep who cares, but i need something better long-term. I've ordered some clear acrylic disc from ebay and will be chopping off the stand holder bit (neatly hopefully) and gluing them to real bases once those get here.
[Aside: bought another set of BGF dice while i was ebaying... online shopping is soooo dangerous]
Aside: the strike cruiser is definitely too big a scale for this collection. it's probably more battle barge size. have been looking at the 'official' models online. oh well, unlikely to get on the table any time soon anyway.
[later: 2018-11-02]
My acrylic discs arrived so i finally got around to fixing bases...
Started by chopping off the x-wing base down to the stick holder. Stack of discs at the back.
'lathed' them into submission. only had a couple of breakages (mainly due to clippering). The stick actually supported the turning which was helpful/nice (if slightly unexpected), however i was generally only applying really light pressure with the abrasives and cutter.
dab o' superglue... yes, my centring probably leaves something to be desired... apply arm-length rule liberally. that said there were only two that i'd potentially bother redoing, everything else was acceptable.
viola - one fleet...
A question: Why did i turn down the side rather than chop/grind the 'flat bit' off all together?
because the little stick holder is moulded down through the flat bit. So if i were to just cut straight across it would have potentially lost the ability to hold the stick.
Just looking at them now the holders look a bit chunky. For x-wing where you have a card over the base and the base is a larger area it's not so noticeable perhaps.
If i were to redo them i might drill the acrylic disc at the centre and glue an x-wing stick directly into it. too late now... oh well. know for next time.
[minutes later: Actually the x-wing base has the little id-holding clips in it as part of the shape (pic), meaning that i can add the ship name on there rather than paint it on the base directly - and then use the bases for other ships too. I knew there was a reason.]
Until next time...
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