Sledgehammer Project; Preparation Pt V - Continued Prep

Again a little work on the Sledgehammer. I know its coming in bits and pieces at this point but I'm really biding my team with the simple stuff while I consider conversions and additional details. The arrival of the care package from Victoria Miniatures helped quite a bit since the crawler tracks and gun shield were in the order. I'm definitely going to use the crawler tracks but I'm up in the air on the gun shield. Its a neat addition but I'm not quite sure of the effect it will have on lines of sight on the diorama, I'll have to play around with it a bit. In the meantime I'm limiting myself to getting the pieces ready for assembly. I found a few more pieces that needed filling this time around too, one of which is in a highly visible position so better to find it now than later!.

Here are the pieces I focused on, along with the tools I used. Squadron Green really gums up the files, all of those will have to be cleaned before I can use them effectively again.

Painting & Modeling Tools - Paint Station

I have decided that I could get more painting and modeling work done if I wasn't isolated down in the workroom. This would require some kind of painting station that will be easy to transport from room to room. I found a nice one from Hobby Zone and discovered that I could get it through Amazon. I decided to give it a try and it arrived on Friday. I didn't have time to put it together till Sunday, but I things it going to serve the purpose. Another one that I was toying with was from Gamecraft Miniatures. It had a couple of extra things you could add to it and I decided that might defeat what I was trying to achieve so the Hobby Zone one won out. If I had to order from Poland that might have been a different story.

I like that the paint rack is not just a bunch of holes, but a long slot. I think that's a more efficient use of the space in a small area. I'll never use those holes for the brush holders though. I just don't store my brushes like that. I will have to clean up the painting desk a bit too, I want to be able to just slide it in and out of place without any disruption which means I have a desk paint rack that will have to go because its just to deep, which means I'll have to figure out something more space efficient to hold the rest of my paint. Probably a sheet of plywood cut to fit and some u channel of some kind will work or I can get lazy and see if there is something commercial that will fit the bill.

Here is a look at the new paint station assembly process:

Straight out of the box. Pretty well packed.

A single sheet of instructions.

The parts all laid out. The ones at the bottom are wings that go on the sides to hold in progress miniatures. I'm not going to use them they add to much to the total width and really don't serve a useful purpose, at least for me.

The piece of MDF is gently bent and glued into the slot, there is another one on the base plate. Seriously bend it gently it will work, if you bend it to hard its likely to snap, MDF has that tendency.

Fitting the top rack into the slots on the back wall. This one had to be done by sight though there are no marks to tell you exactly how it should go so I just made sure it was centered.

Then the bottom rack is glue into place. The instructions suggest using "paper tape" to hold things together while the glue dries. I thin they are actually referring to masking tape. I only had painters tape available, it worked but not as well as masking tape.

And from the other side. Remember the bigger rack goes on the bottom! I actually didn't make that mistake although it would have been a classic one for me.

Here I'm gluing a side piece into place and holding it in place with the painters tape. Larry is providing supervision at this point.

Everything assembled, just need to glue it to the base now. You can see the tan areas on the base plate, that's where the rack sub assembly is glued. The white surface is quite slick, although I'll still use some kind of cutting surface on top of it. I'm sure it wouldn't hold up to a lot of cutting.

Everything glued together, at this point the Titebond Glue that I use should provide enough strength to hold the base to the rack assembly, however, I'm considering adding some small screws from underneath anyway. I would use screws instead of nails because its MDF. Nails tend to split MDF, so some pilot holes and screws are definitely in order.

Still in the drying state. Those are the wing pieces that I don't think I'll be using. I might drill some holes in them and experiment with them as extra spots for water or maybe glue bottles.

Here's where it needs to live though, the basement work room:

There is a Horse Glider wing sitting on the paint rack in this shot. But that rack goes all the way to the back. Its a roll top desk so I can keep Larry off it when I'm not working.

To the right are the racks with other paints, minis, inks, basing material etc.

To the left, my main cabinet above the airbrush station. There is another cabinet to the right of this which is for long term storage as its a little harder to get to.

The main light for this used to be a florescent fixture, I recently replaced that with a 4200 lumens LED fixture, the difference is amazing.