Woodworking - Calibrating

I finally managed to drag out a work table and get my miter saw and drill press setup properly. I sat down and calibrated the miter saw to make sure its making straight cuts. My heavy weights come in handy for this as this is the kind of thing they are designed for. They essentially act as squares and they are heavy enough to stay in place while you make the adjustments.

I switched out the 24 tooth blade for the 45 tooth blade hoping to get a smoother cut so that less finishing work is needed.

Just a couple of quick shots of the results:

Trying out the 45 degree cut. Looks good so far.

Much smoother, cleaner cut. Finishing should be a breeze

That's as perfect a 45 degree angle as I'm going to get.

Magnets, Drillbits and Milestones

First the Milestone, the blog hit 200,000 page views today and I calculated that about 43,000 individuals have visited the blog since I started in way back in January of 2012. So there's the exciting news of the day, thank you everyone for sticking with me and my half completed projects!

On to the work. My magnets arrived yesterday and I picked up the drill bit (A Forstner Bit) to make the cut outs for the magnets. I purchased both 3/8" diameter and 1/2" diameter magnets, still haven't decided which ones I'm going to use. Tonight I opted to try out the 1/2" magnets.

The first thing I learned after trying this out is that the holes have to be cut more precisely than I did it. Otherwise the sides are actually held out of alignment, kind of ugly looking. I figured I may as well keep going tonight and I decided to build the background for the Trophy Hunter just to see how things might go together with some thing other than matte board.

Here are the pictures from tonight:

A Forstner bit is designed to cut into the wood and leave a flat bottom.

The drill press with the bench set at 45 degrees so that I was actually cutting into a flat surface

1/2" x 1/16" Rare Earth Magnets. The self adhesive on these isn't even close to be strong enough for my purposes, I'll have to go with epoxy to hold them in place.

Marking the back for the holes

Holes drilled, I think I missed getting everything lined up properly

Magnets in place

Gluing wood strips for the floor. These are coffee stirrers.

And the otherside

Planking going on for the display base portion

The floor is in, looks pretty good

Trimming it out. I may need to apply a second coat of  Danish oil to the bottom as well as the back (to seal it).

Baseboards in place

Putting the scene back together

Adding some color. I used a brush I should have used an airbrush to get a nice even coat. I do like that green though.

Competition Prototypes II

While I continue to mess around with the display bases I thought I would turn my attention towards one of the dioramas that I have planned. This is "Steady Lads" and again is an all Reaper piece. It is set circa 1880s (maybe during the Ripper murders) and utilizes the British Colonial Troops and a couple of Aliens. 

Right now I actually think this one is to small so I'm going to expand the stairway and street sides of the scene outwards to give me some more room to play with. I have all the minis now for this but I'm kind of reached a stumbling block as there are some construction issues I have to think about.  

1) The interior floor of the building needs to be higher than the sidewalk.
2) The street wall needs to be longer and needs a bigger window or maybe two windows.
3) The exterior, street side, needs brickwork and/or stone work to compliment the windows
4) A basement window near the corner would add interest
5) The street side needs to be longer so I can space the aliens out a bit more
6) The sidewalk needs to be wider
7) Add a grate for interest in the gutter
8) The alley stairs just need to be wider so there will be a bit more room for the soldiers
9) A streetlamp to help set the date
10) Period posters, again, to help set the date
11) A street sign to help set the location

Really the biggest thing is how to actually go about constructing this, especially with all the multiple levels going on, and what to make it out of. My usual go to material of styrene plastic is not going to be sufficient or efficient in trying to build some of these shapes. I spent a lot of time just staring at the thing the last couple of nights. Maybe a trip to Hobby Lobby or Michaels will lead to a new material discovery.

This is the configuration I'm thinking about right now. I replaced a couple of the Troopers with some other poses that I like better.

The original prototype, I have shown this before.

British in place, The officer with the sword is still in play but the other two are new. I think they provide better direction/action than the two I was planning on using orginally.

Shot down the Alley

Aliens in search of something

The interior walls definitely need to be taller. The bayonet should not extend above the top of the wall!

Competition Prototypes

With the prototype display bases completed I thought I would take a look at how some of my entries might go together. I had the miniatures hand for the Trophy Hunter and Terror From Outer Space. So with a little "blue" tack I wanted to see how these might look.

Trophy Hunter is an all Reaper display featuring the Female Andromedan and three trophies consisting of various Bathalians. For this display the high backdrop is perfect.

The heads tacked into place

And the Hunter pointing out some interesting point on her latest trophy.

Right now the whole background just screams old English trophy room, Green walls, dark wood wainscotting, hardwood floor and maybe a rug and a little table. Should be fun.

The second one The Terror From Outer Space is much simpler but the background is going to be a bit more complex. I'll have to work out how to do build the interior of a spaceship.

So imagine an airlock door on the left side where the tentacles are coming from. I might add a little robot to the scene on the right side to help balance it out.

Looking at the display bases and the minis sort of in place, I definitely happy with how things are coming along. I will just have to sit down and start painting now!

Woodworking on a Tuesday Night

I successfully managed to get the backdrops mounted to the display blocks this evening. For this step I used 1/8" Basswood. It takes primer well and after that its all about what you want to put on the backdrop itself. There is enough space to add a 3D backdrop or just go for a painted one. I could also mount a photo or some other kind of print to it. Height can be adjusted to match. I made these first prototypes with deliberately tall backdrops, although cutting them in place could be a little difficult, I might be able to do it with my miter saw though. Something else to experiment with.

At this point I'm going to call this a success, although I still need to mount the magnets. I need to make sure the tools are calibrated for straight cuts and use a finer toothed sawblade. I have some more poplar to mess around with but I think its time to start looking at what actual woods I want to use. The final touch will be the rare earth magnets, those shipped today and I have the drill bits I need as well so that should be an easy bit of drilling to do.

 The magnets are mounted to the back and on the inside of the cutout. Here's what they looked like right now.

These are the straight back pieces

This are the angled back pieces

Gluing on the back

Okay, the clamps didn't work so I brought the weights out. Here are two of them drying.

Well, there are some gaps there. I expected that since nothing seemed to really want to be straight, that's what prototypes are for though.

The poor man's clamp comes to the rescue, rubber bands!

Here's Dave Mac showing off. The center block is removable and will be held in place with rare earth magnets

All four displays arranged in "travel mode". The rare earth magnets that will be mounted on the angled sides will hold everything together. I may also make a base for this to rest on.

View two sides at once

Sunday Woodworking

I hemmed and hawed and finally decided to pick up a drill press this week. The glue joint on the prototypes between the angle block and the back piece is just not strong enough on its own. I managed to break two of them apart this week. The smallest "pins" I could find were 1/4" and since the back piece is only 1/2" wide its going to take some precision drilling, through a 45 degree angle no less, to make this all come together. While I could make my own pegs at what ever width I desire there is a point where the peg itself wouldn't be strong enough and I want to be able to buy off the shelf as much as possible. So enter the drill press. I was able to sit down outside this afternoon and enjoy a lovely autumn day and figure out how to make this work. The two that had broken were relatively easy to do, but the two that were still intact and the second side of the other two were going to present some problems. I did one by holding everything by hand and hoping that blocks didn't start spinning out from the drill. That worked but its not the safest and it kind of felt like a game of Jenga. 

A jig was required. It turned out to be pretty simple, just a little box the right size, a back piece and a 45 degree block and I was set. I need to calibrate the miter saw properly though its still cutting a slight angle when I should be getting a vertical cut. Rather than do that I went brute force and glued the box together and then pegged it as well. Not the prettiest work but it gets the job done and that's all I need it to do.

After I drilled and pegged everything I spent some time sanding everything down in preparation for a little finish work. I hit everything again with the 80 grit sandpaper, then followed that up with the 120 grit and finally a shot with the 220 grit. Poplar is a relatively soft hardwood so this only took about an hour to work through. Since my intention is to match woods with the miniature I went with a natural finish rather than a colored stain. I'm quite please with the final result. I still need to figure out what wood to use for the backdrops but I'm closing in actually finishing these and showing them off a bit. I'll definitely be using a couple of the better looking ones for my Genghis Con entries.

Here is the photo story for today.

Successfully drilled out the first display stand. A good combination square and a mechanical pencil are required tools.

This is a 1/2" fluted "pin" I have applied my favorite wood glue Titebond

See how much glue is forced out, hence why the peg is fluted to give it someplace to go. Use a wet cloth or paper towel to wipe up the excess glue.

The second peg is in. This should now hold up to just about any abuse you care to dish out at this point.

Ready to cut the pegs

Quick work with a hand held miter saw

Followed by more sanding to get them flush

Here one of the display stands that survived the week intact is now pegged from both sides. Working on this piece convinced me that I needed some kind of jig to hold everything while I drilled the holes.

Pegs cut and sanded

Constructed the jig. I couldn't find any rubber bands so I grabbed some hair bands instead.

What goes inside, one of the back pieces and one 45 degree cut block. 

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Works like a charm. Note at this point I hadn't cut the excess pegs from the jig yet.

Finishing everything up with a coat of Watco Danish Oil, natural finish. I even did the jig. Since its going to get a lot of use I figured that it would be best if it had a protective finish as well. You can clearly see that the pegs are made from a different kind of wood. Since these are on the back side and will be covered by the backdrop I'm not worried about matching woods.

And everything put together in the right way.