90's inspired 40,000 terrain

KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
I placed the needed amount of washers on a sheet of baking paper, and took out a bag of floral wire.



PXL_20240423_065941424-w960.jpg

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The floral wire I cut in half, then bent one end into a U-shape.




I placed a blob of airdrying clay into the hole of each washer, pressed it flat, pressed one of the U-shaped wire ends into it, and pressed some more clay on top.


 
EricF

EricF

Administrator
Dumb question but a friend just did a load of washers on minis and was asking why they didn't stick to his magnetic sheet ... he'd bought stainless steel washers ... just wanted to check yours were zinc plated mild steel before you got too far! Of course some stainless is magnetic, but lots falls into the austenitic category and is not very magnetic. Those looked shiny enough to be stainless.
 
KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
Thanks for the warning. I have been using these types for years now, never had an issue with them sticking. I would always have thought everything with the word steel in it would be magnetic... You never stop learning...
 
EricF

EricF

Administrator
There are five classes of stainless steel: austenitic, ferritic, precipitation hardened, duplex and martensitic. It's the crystal structures that define them and that is mainly based on the actual alloy austenitic ones have a lot of nickel in them and the crystal structure is face-centred-cubic which that makes them non magnetic (although the edges of sheets and bends are sometimes a bit magnetic). I expect a quick google will go into the nuances of each if you want to go rabbit hole exploring in the wonderful world of metallurgy. Anyhow since it's not lead alloys we're talking about I'll shut up now :)
 
symphonicpoet

symphonicpoet

Moderator
^Huh! Apparently our local pile is austenitic. (SAE grade 304) I did not know that. Apparently it's the most common variety. I've been wondering a bit about some of the different properties, thanks to the MuskTruk, and the fact that it's staining rather readily. Our little collection is stained, of course, but not too badly for a thing that's been standing in the weather sixty years. I also recall having a conversation about the magneticness of the stuff with a friend, and I've picked up stainless hardware off floors with a magnet, so I was surprised when she insisted it wasn't. Thank you Eric! Explains a lot. Fun rabbit hole.

^^And KingOfTheLeadPile, I sincerely look forward to the trees! This is looking better and better all the time. :)
 
ManicMan

ManicMan

Member
next time on metallurgy with Eric, why they don't make pewter with magnetic properties (yeah, I know why but it would make things sooo much easier if they did..) ^_^
 
symphonicpoet

symphonicpoet

Moderator
^Okay, I'm game. Why don't they make pewter (or lead free miniature white metal for that matter) magnetic? Would it make the melting point too high?
 
ManicMan

ManicMan

Member
as I understand it, magnetic metals are mostly iron, nickel and cobalt (with some odd rare earth ones like Neodymium). Steel is an alloy which for the most part was pretty hard to make. Pewter is mostly tin, which then used to have lead mixed with it but it's now more copper. Pewter has a low melting point of about 200c, where as iron (for example) is 1,300c. Steel is mostly Iron, so as you can see, that's a very high melting point which is one reason it was hard to make in the past (for another example), a traditional bonfire you are looking up to 1,000c. So it was a bit hard to get it up to temp. Oh and just for measure, Nickel is about 1,400c melting point and cobalt is around that.

another issue is what are you going to make the mould out of? it would have to be a metal with a far higher melting point then steel. Miniatures are normally made one or two ways: a silicone rubber mould which you 'press' the original model into, or a cnc steel mould (which is more used for plastic figures). neither method is really any good for steel or iron as the casting material.

despite steel moulds being pretty pricey to make.. steel prices aren't that high compared to pewter, but it's the manufacturing which is the pricey bit.

of course, I'm not an expert, that's just as I understand it.
 
MichaelStockin

MichaelStockin

Member
Nice work, I agree that you need to be able to move the trees to allow models to move about.
Though being lazy I just mark the perimeters of the woods and move the trees about as needed:

20240427_123202.jpg

Does not look as pretty though.

hmmmm I have ePVC and I have all my trees on coins, maybe I could copy what you did anyway...

:grin:
 
KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
MichaelStockin said:
hmmmm I have ePVC and I have all my trees on coins, maybe I could copy what you did anyway...
Click to expand...
I generally can only recommend bases with removable trees. The ones you see in my WFB battlereports follow a similar approach:

PXL_20240428_173822622-w960.jpg


Here the "indendation" is just sand glued to an mdf base. Not as stable, trees are easily moved by accident, but still visually pleasing to my eyes.
 
KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
The "trees" I am using will fit the rest of the fauna I did so far for the project, and also be some kind of weird alien plants - fungi to be precise. The idea for this kind of mushroom I got from Michael's TWS YouTube video - using garlic bulb cores.


And it fits the 90's theme in my opinion, because my trees are not some kitbashed plastic kits, but actually self crafted, even incorporating nature.




In Michael's video, the cores had nice, thick stems. I got a few of them, but most of those I have are much more flimsy; I wouldn't trust them to be durable. Also, I would like to change the look of the stems.


That is why I mounted the floral wire on my bases. I drilled a hole in the core base, glued the wire into that hole with super glue, and, once dry, wrapped the wire around the stem; or in some cases I didn't even have a stem.




The next step was to apply a thin sheet of air drying clay around stem/wire and connect that with the clay already on the base, to give the "tree" some stability and fix the position of the stem. To get thin sheets of clay, I placed a clump of clay between two sheets of baking paper, and rolled them flat with a rolling pin (which I borrowed from our kitchen, don't tell my wife...).




Once that initial stabilizing layer was dry, I wrapped more thin sheets of clay around the stems, brought them into a form I liked, and then sculpted vertical grooves into them.




So I have been collecting garlic bulb cores for the last couple months, but we definitely don't eat enough. I am running low and currently only have enough for about half my bases. It looked like so much in the box...


Unfortunately nearby restaurants I asked all use industrially cut garlic, and don't process cloves out of bulbs themselves.


Now I need to go and eat some raw garlic so we have to buy some more...
 
KingOfTheLeadPile

KingOfTheLeadPile

Member
ManicMan said:
don't garlic bulbs rot?
Click to expand...
I hope not :)

So the ones I have are all completely dry, no sign of rottage. Next step will be to seal them with Modge Podge or PVA. When the dry material gets sealed (and ideally soaks up the sealant) I don't think I will get any rot.

To be rotting they would need to be wet, right?
 
ManicMan

ManicMan

Member
fair enough.. I've been suprised at what rots and what doesn't and at the end of the day, sealing them should deal with any real issues
 
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