Everything…everything is resin…
Just a quick update to let you know how things are going – I estimate that I’m now between 20-25% done casting (yay!)
I say “estimate” because I still have lots of buildings that I’ve cast, but haven’t cleaned up or counted yet. Keeping up with myself can be a bit tricky – I’m pouring nearly two gallons of resin per casting day.
So casting continues on schedule, although I’m working on a bit of a snag regarding the corner pillars. As you saw a couple updates ago, I’m now sitting on a great big pile of stock for the corners that all needs to be cut to length. Unfortunately, none of the techniques I’ve tried for cutting the pillars quickly have been satisfactory so far. My first plan was to use a tool called The Chopper (a little guillotine-like thing for slicing through plasticard) but it wasn’t able to cut cleanly through the thickness of the tubing. Then I figured I’d go with the nuclear option, and try a bandsaw. While that works, only one side of the cut comes out cleanly – and since the top of one cut is the bottom of another piece, that won’t do.
So what are the options moving forward? First, one of my sources has this sort of tiny tube-cutting tablesaw which I may be able to pay him to use (same guy who owns the vacuum chamber I was using, actually – he’s presumably got all that love and happiness and stuff out of his system and returned from his honeymoon)
Second, I’m looking at my options with the bandsaw – a different blade or type of saw may solve the problems with the rough cuts.
Third, my last resort is to trim the tubes by hand using a miter box, the same way I did for the pieces that went into the finished buildings you saw during the campaign. This will get the job done (and should still not prevent me from delivering in a timely fashion) but is something I’m hoping to avoid for obvious reasons. I may be able to bring on a gullible chump/valued helper to assist me if it comes to that.
As always, thanks for reading and I’d love to hear any of your comments or questions (especially if you know of some kind of badass tube-cutting robot or something)
Cheers,
-Chris