New Material Cutter

Looking at Matt's latest creations I can see that Matt and I have different styles. Whereas I see Matt's style as more 'pure' (unadulterated wooden craft parts, with added pieces of plastic and paper), mine uses more digital assets, unless I am making minimalist miniatures, like the little guys below.

It really started in 2010 when I started printing details onto paper using an inkjet printer, to save me from painting fine details that make up a Napoleonic British line infantryman.

In 2016, I bought a Cricut Explore 3, which is a desktop cutting machine. You feed it a drawing and rather than printing the design it cuts it out. I used for a lot of parts that I used to craft from wood, such as arms, legs, bicorne hats, plumes, axe blades, etc.

One day I was curious about whether my Cricut could cut a particular material and I found a page on the Cricut website showing all kinds of materials I did not know it could do. It could do 1/16" basswood!

Unfortunately, I was on a page showing what the latest model could do, not what my model could. Nonetheless I tried the custom settings it was recommending and, although it scored the wood pretty good, it did not cut it all the way through. The custom settings allow you to make multiple passes, but no more than nine. Running the job twice seemed risky as the material doesn't need much shifting in order to mess the second job up. No, the only thing to do was to retire my seven year old machine and buy the latest model!

By the way, if you have read my older stuff you know that I have a laser cutter, so why am I looking for a heavier cutting machine, you might ask? Well, the laser does not do well in the heat and the building where the laser is housed has no air conditioning. Oh, and I live in Arizona. I cannot bring the laser into an air conditioned house because of all the smoke generated by the cutting, so…

So, I bought the new Cricut Maker 3 from Amazon (that is an affiliate link; won't cost you anything more, but gives me a penny or so). So far the results have been mixed, but getting better.

The first thing I tried was my basswood cutting project. It failed. I kept getting a 'Blade not detected' error no matter which blade I put in. So, I backed up a bit, followed the Getting Started instructions, and started over. I updated the software and tried a calibration test. Failed with same error. I tried the sample project and it worked. I then decided to try one of my old craft foam projects and it also worked. Looking up.

I called tech support and was greeted with an expected call wait time of one hour and 40 minutes. Eventually it let me leave a voicemail and they did, in fact, call back. Told him everything I did, including reinstalling the software (which the website suggested) and told to send in a video. As an aside, because this machine is on the internet they were able to see it, despite the fact that I was connecting to it via Bluetooth. Nonetheless, they could not diagnose the issue.

I did some more testing today. I tried cutting chipboard (1.5mm thick), which I could do with the other machine, using custom settings. With this new machine the material is already in the list to pick; no need to set custom settings. It also failed with the same error. This was when I noticed that the material from the pick list has a special icon, indicating a 'smart' material. I noticed they had Mat Board (1.5mm) as a material and it did not have that icon, so I tried that and it worked! The blade was recognized. I decided to try and create a custom material, with the exact same settings, and see if it would work. It also did!

It seems like the special icon indicates settings that you cannot set when defining custom materials, i.e. more pressure or more passes of the cut. Something I am sending to tech support. So I am still debugging it, but I am back up and running and far as grinding out foam and chipboard parts, just not basswood parts yet. I can probably switch to balsa wood though, but that is too fragile for gaming, even if I soak it in Future floor wax or superglue.

So, am I happy with the purchase? Actually yes. One feature of the new model was faster cutting, and that is true.  Also, the software can now be downloaded to the computer instead of running only in a browser. Does it cut wood? Not yet, but I am sure that it will when the issue is resolve (or they send me a new unit).

Until then, I have more Dark Ages soldiers to build.

I Received My Dream Tool: A Laser

This was long overdue, but as I head towards retirement (three more years) I decided it was time to stop procrastinating and to buy a dream tool that I had been pondering for a long time: a laser cutter and engraver. Now you might be wondering why this is on this particular blog and the answer is because it will absolutely play a role in cutting out parts for my wooden warriors.

In the past I used a Cricut cutting machine to cut out arm shapes and Spanish bicornes from craft foam sheet and, although I liked the flexibility of the material, I did not like how it took paint. With a laser I will easily be able to cut out shapes in 3mm and 1/8" thickness.

Right now I am in the experimental phase. I have long drawn images for wargaming using various drawing packages on the Macintosh. I bought the Glowforge Plus and it accepts SVG format files as input for 2D work, i.e. cutting and scoring. I have been using Inkscape for years, and that saves in many of the formats that the Glowforge accepts.

My first experiment was creating a painting rack for my paints. I use Pro Acryl mostly right now and they have a large bottle size than the craft paints and the Vallejo/Army Painter sized bottles, so I thought I would cut out my own as an initial project.

The laser in action.

I looked at other paint holders and I noticed that many have the paint bottles standing straight up and down. The better ones stack one on top of another. I didn't really want that kind. I wanted the bottles angled and showing the color as much as possible.

The top of the holder.

The top plate of the holder has holes slightly larger than the bottle's diameter (30mm) so the paint bottle can slide in comfortably.

The sides of the holder.

I decided to cut out two of these sheets so I could double up on the sides and make it stiffer.

The bottom of the holder.

The bottom has small holes so the bottle's tip could slide in.

The finished product.

I really like how I can see all the colors so easily. It takes up a bit of space, but I don't want stackable holders where I have to unstack them to remove a paint bottle and I am tired of having to pick up bottles to look at the color from holders where the bottles stand straight. If I were afraid of the bottles leaking I could still reverse them (tips up) and see the colors while being able to easily grab the bottle.

The different cuts.

This was a really instructive project and I look forward to doing more. Right now all of my projects are more war-game accessories and the like. I am strongly considering continuing to use the 3mm chipboard as a replacement for craft foam sheets (although I have a ton of it still).

More Granny Grate Guns

Look what I found! I was going through Hobby Lobby looking to see if "granny grates" had different sizes for the hole or the thickness of the arms (I could not find any) and low and behold, there were not only grates of different shapes and sizes, but triangular grates where the holes were also triangular!

I got a package of 10 grates for $1.59. They only come in one color and size (at least at this store), but you can make triangular and hexagonal shapes.

Me, I was looking for the ubiquitous AK-47 look.

A little blurry, but you get the idea. The rifle stock was flattened with needle-nosed pliers, as was the magazine, then clipped with sharp scissors or a craft knife to make the shape a bit better. On 15mm figures, it works.

One of the other issues I have been having is creating crests on hoplite helmets. Using dimensional paint works, but it takes layers to get a good result, which takes time and patience. This new triangular shape fits nicely around the curve of a round-head furniture plug.

Add just a little dimensional paint (one layer, in this case) and it makes a fine horsehair crest for a 15mm helmeted head.

Not only are there triangular grates, there are circular ones, with curved rows and columns. I could not think immediately of a use, so I did not buy one, but I am sure I will come up with something later, like gears.

Dimensional Paint

I first talked about acrylic dimensional Writer by Americana back when I was building my first Austrian artillery piece. It is essentially a thick paint that adds some dimension to your work, as advertised. However, the product had issues when you tried to build up a sizable area, such as the combs on my Austrian Dragoons. It took lots of layers – with an appropriate drying period in between each layer – and could only go so far before it became fragile. It is only thick paint, after all. So I limited my usage for cap peaks and such and left it at that.

While wandering through the local Hobby Lobby I noticed the following product, E6000 Allure Dimensional Design Adhesive Paint.

It comes in a 2 ounce tube, in various colors, and either gloss, glitter or metallic. So far I have only purchased Gloss Chocolate and Gloss White. My first test was to see how different it is from Americana Writer and to see whether it kept its gloss. I decided to make a shako cord for one of my 42mm cavalrymen.

The first thing you will notice is that it is like a glossy plastic. (This is after it has fully cured.) Second is that it comes out like thick pudding. It is not easy to get a solid, consistent bead. It sort of comes out in waves, giving that rippled appearance. As I get used to it more, I am sure I will get more control over it.

Here you can see it being used on a 12mm figure. In this case I have used it over the Americana Writer, which has sort of pooled and flattened out, giving a much crisper, well-defined shako peak. Further, I have created the cockade at the top and the whole of the right arm of the figure. You have much more control of the material than with hot glue.

The material takes a bit to set up, about 15 minutes or so, and takes several hours to cure. It still stays a bit tacky for a day, but I see no deformation. It is adhesive, and I see no signs of this peeling off, at least from wood (which is very porous), so your ability to manipulate it after curing will be limited to cutting with a sharp blade. Because of its rubbery nature, sanding is problematic. It is like trying to sand latex or silicone caulk, rather than plastic.

To get an idea of the thickness and control you can get, I decided to try the various products on wood. The picture above is cropped, but to get an idea of the size, the above is as wide as a wooden popsicle stick.

Item A is Americana Writer. You can see after curing overnight that it has flattened out a bit and pooled.

Item B, D and E are White Gloss Allure mixed with Americana Light Avocado craft paint (about 60%-40%). B sort of spurted out. D shows a thicker layer for dimension. E shows a thinner layer to see if the gloss is reduced and to show fine control. I mixed this with my grass green color as I wanted to see if this could be a substitute for static grass for 6mm figures, as I previously experimented with on my other blog. It looks like it can.

Item C is straight Chocolate Gloss Allure. Notice the waves and high gloss. It is much thicker and can definitely be used to make larger and taller dimensions for details.

This product is highly recommended for quickly and easily adding those details onto your figures where you need more dimension. It has the ability to easily form points and it retains much of its shape during curing with very little shrinkage, flattening or pooling. I have noted, however, that the larger the area where you put this product, the more likely it will flatten. This is great for making dots and lines, but less so for adding large, well-defined shapes.

Starting New 28mm DBA Hun Army

After I completed my 28mm DBA Armenian army I went to Cold Wars 2012 and entered into a DBA tournament ... and got smashed. Not really surprising because I had never played an Armenian army, not even a single time, so I really had no practice. (That I was not playing much DBA at all did not help either.) I came back home, put the box of troops on the shelf, and there it sat for four years until I recently took it to show it off a friend. We played a couple of DBA games using 15mm troops, but it started me to think that I need to make an opponent to this army so I can use it more.

I've looked at the enemies of the Armenians before and was thinking about the Early Imperial Roman army, but as noted when I tried making some, the helmets are quite a project. I needed something simpler. As DBA is up to 3.0 now, I looked through the new army lists and found that they could match up against the Hunnic army, which consists of one General as Cavalry or Light Horse and 11 Light Horse elements. I like Light Horse armies and this seems simple enough.

I decided to start on the first element – the General as Cavalry – and use a few new build ideas that I had been thinking about. So here is the final build of the element. It has two different style of figures.

 

The figure in brown is made with two beads, one stacked on top of the other, while the other two are a single, oval bead.

One of the inspirations for building this army was finding a novelty bead called a 'moustache bead'.

The bead in the center is the original, unaltered bead. By sanding away some of the underside of the bead (on the left) you get more of a composite bow look. By sanding on the top and bottom sides you get more of a longbow look. The figure in brown is carrying the bow, so you can get a sense of scale.

The figures in orange and blue represent a huge leap in minimalist (for me) in that the head and body are a single part, an oval bead.

At first I was skeptical about using these beads would be useful, given their simple shape. As I started adding the other bits, for example for the head covering, the arms and legs (hot glue), and the weapons, I saw that it actually worked out well. The key was giving the figure a hat, so the head did not look so pointy.

For the hat I found another novelty bead. I am not sure what it is – maybe some sort of flower – but it makes for a great padded leather cap.

I glued these to the top of the bead, sanded the top down a little so the hole was not so prominent, filled the hole with glue, and then added a short piece of yarn between the head and the hat to act as fur trim. All in all, I liked the effect. I just need to find a way to vary the look a little, other than by painting different fur colors.

The brown figure was made differently. For this I used two cylinder beads – one of which is shown below – and stacked them on top of one another. The bead for the head is shown here, with a taller cylinder for the body. I used the same novelty bead for the hat. As a way of making figures, it worked fine, but I was so struck with the look of the single oval bead that I will probably not use these for this army.

With my experiments on making horse in 12mm I started using oval beads – similar to the ones that I used for the bodies of the orange and blue figures – for horse's heads. Normally I use the split eggs, shown on the left below, for the forequarters, hindquarters, and the head. I was never really fond of using the exact same size egg for all three. I always felt like the head should have been smaller.

 

Now I use oval beads for the head, only I use ones that are more "squat" in appearance. Almost what are called barrel beads. Using these kind of beads allowed me to stop using a flathead plug as the neck, so I have essentially swapped two wooden parts for one.

Well there you have it. One stand down, 12 more to go. I just need to come up with a way to vary the head coverings a little more. I guess I will have to suffer a trip to the craft store to get some inspiration! 😉

Early Christmas Present: a Cricut Cutter

I received a new Christmas present from Santa Amazon the other day: a Cricut Explore Air 2. (By the way, it is not pronounced "cry-cut", like I thought, but "cricket".) So what is it? It is like an old plotter only in addition to plotting (using drawing pens) it also scores and cuts designs out of craft materials like paper, vinyl and – if you get the deep cut blade – foam sheet.

Because it is Air-compatible you can print from your computer over Bluetooth. So naturally, with the Spanish 1808 project ahead of me, I decided to grind out some bicornes. First, I created a digital version of the plastic template I made.

The Cricut comes with its own Design Space software which runs in your browser. I was using Google Chrome on a Mac and had no issues with the software. After creating an account, logging in, and creating a new project, you upload the image into your project.

The graphic came in oversized – this is typical with this type of software – so I resized it. As you dragged the resize handle it automatically kept the shape proportion, so nothing fiddly there.

I then copied and pasted in several more bicornes to fill up the page. Note in the graphic about that the shape is intended to be cut out (the little scissors icon). It took me a while to figure that one out. My first attempt it kept trying to print the shapes.

There are a number of things you can do with a shape. Coloring is so that you can discern different shapes on different layers. You can also mix and match action by having some shapes cut and some score. This is useful for paper modeling, which needs to support both.

When you hit the 'Go' button it brings up a preview screen. As it turned out, meticulously positioning all of the shapes did not matter; it rearranged them to maximize use of the page. I think it was able to do this because I was choosing an odd size (4" by 6") and because everything was on the same layer.

I positioned my foam sheet on the adhesive mat provided. Note that the mat is gummy and designed so the material stays in place while the cutter is operating. Note the damage I have already made to my new mat with scribbles and cuts on it already.

Once everything is ready, you click the 'Go' button on the screen. The 'Load' button on the Cricut flashes, so you press it and the mat and your material is pulled into the machine. (Note: the mat moves forward and back; the cutter only moves left and right. This machine needs a lot of table space!)

There is a knob on the Cricut to indicate how thick the material you are cutting is. Initially I set it to the highest value and I noticed some tearing. I paused it in the middle and reset the thickness to 'Custom' and then the cuts smoothed out. After I finished the job I could see yet more cuts in my mat from where I had the setting too high. All of the bicorne halves popped right out of the sheet, however.

A little bit of trimming for those first ones with a pair of sharp craft scissors will get rid of the jaggedness. No worries. You can see the one in the bottom center has a dent where the roller went over it. This might not be good if you need both sides of the foam to look pristine, but if one side is not shown, the end result will be fine.

So in the span of a few minutes of cutting, I have 14 halves. Enough for seven bicornes. When I get a little more efficient with my cutting, and create a few more digital templates, I should be able to quickly and consistently make arms, legs, weapons, plumes, epaulettes, and more.

I also bought some adhesive backed vinyl to experiment with. I am already thinking about the possibilities there.

UPDATE: This is why I cannot complete project! I cannot leave well enough alone. Rather than simply being a bicorne factory for my 42mm troops I start wondering. What if I scale the size down even more, can I make a bicorne small enough to fit my 12mm troops? Can the Cricut cut something that small and intricate? Can I glue something that small without gluing my fingers to the model too?

Let's stop wondering and try!



Yup! That is a bicorne on a 12mm bead cavalryman. It may be a little oversized, but I like my figures cartoony and this is still doable with my sausage fingers.

Must ... not ... start ... new ... project!

Austrian Artillery 1866 (12mm)

This will probably be my last article on making minimal soldiers using beads, given that the construction is dead simple and the interest lower than on making the full-sized figures. I will continue making them and may, on occasion, show the painted versions. But unless I come up with something unique (like an elephant), this article will probably be the end of that series.

So to finish it all off, I wanted to go over how I built my Austrian artillery and limber for the Austro-Prussian War 1866 (or the Seven Weeks' War). First, let's start with the artillery piece.

The picture above shows the main components: A) a mini-dowel or section of round toothpick for the axle; B) two short sections of matchstick for the base of the barrel; C) a section of matchstick slightly rounded to serve as the gun barrel; and D) two circle beads that look 'good enough' for wheels.

I start by attaching the axle to the wheels using hot glue.

The hardest part will be getting the wheels aligned.

Next, attach a section of matchstick to the axle to serve as the base of the gun platform.

Now attach the second section of matchstick to the axle 90º away from the first attachment point. If you looked at the platform from the side, it would form an 'L'.

Now we are going to use the pointed end of a flat toothpick for the trails.

Cut them to the right length.

  Now attach them to the axle with hot glue.

Now we need to work on the limber. First we start with two cube beads and a piece of mini-dowel.

Hot glue them together along with two more 'wheel' beads.

I have shown how to make horses previously. Make two of those and glue a mini-dowel to act as the pole for the limber. Face the horses away from the gun. When the gun is forward, the artillery is deployed; when the horses are, it is limbered.

You will need a little mini-dowel at the front for the cross-piece too.

I was using Prussian artillerists in the two pictures above, not Austrians. But I noticed that the two artillerists are a little too close together. I do want to keep things cramped to minimize painting details, but that is too cramped. I am going to have to drill some holes farther apart.

The Austrian artillerists are dead simple. They are a 1/4" flat head plug turned upside-down glued on top of a 6mm spherical bead. That is it.

The white stuff that you see above the face is a product called Writer by Americana and it is "dimensional" acrylic paint. I accidentally picked this up (the accident being that I knocked over the bottle in Hobby Lobby and shattered the plastic lid, so I felt compelled to buy it) and decided to try it.

One of my hesitations about using beads and such for more modern subjects is that so little of the headgear is a simple shape. Take the basic shako or kepi, for example. They are both basically cylindrical, but they have a peak on the front (and sometimes the back) which is, I think, distinctive. Previously I have been either ignoring it or using hot glue, as I did with the spikes on the Prussian pickelhaubes. Because Writer has a very fine nozzle and a very thick consistency, you can squeeze out small embellishments using this paint. For the peaks on 12mm shakos, it is actually perfect. I can see doing this for cockades, plates and other small, but distinctive shape. Here is what it looks like after it was dried and painted.

The figure on the right shows the profile view well and the peak is more visible. If this took anything more than a minute to do, I would not do it. As it is, it takes less time that it does for me to make the hot glue spikes for the Prussians.

Here is the finished artillery piece. I am still pondering whether to paint the gun barrel bronze or keep it black (I have seen images both ways). The spoked wheels are simply painting 'conversions'; there are no modeled spokes. Same thing with the harnesses on the horses, except for the collars; that is hot glue used to hold the head to the body. I decided to paint it like a draft horse's collar.

The rammer is a simple mini-dowel using Writer to create the sponge on the end, painted an appropriately dirty color, of course.

All in all, this was a fun little piece to create.

Next Up!

I went and visited friends last weekend and they reintroduced me to DBA (version 3, this time). It game me the occasion to bring out my wooden 28mm DBA Armenian army and show them off.

The Armenians want a foe to fight!

But as my friends have 15mm armies, I could not use these little guys. I have decided that I need to rectify that! I started an Early Imperial Roman army, but did not get very far. There is a lot of infantry and their build was pretty tedious and complex. But they look cool!

Early Imperial Romans have too much equipment!

So I started looking through the army lists, looking for another possible solution. Something simpler, but something I know I would want to play and play against.

Huns!

I am going to try and build upon my bead experience, but still have a nicer army at the same (25mm) scale as my Armenians.

For the Huns that fought the Armenians, I have two choices: II/80b Sabir Hunnic Army 515–558 AD or II/80d Other Hunnic Armies 374–558 AD. The first is too specialized and for too short a period, so I decided to go with the latter. Taking all of the options into account, this army would require:

• 1 General Cavalry unit
• 1 General Light Horse unit
• 11 Light Horse (archer) units

That is a lot of horse archers! Still, they are relatively easy to make and they are only two riders and two horses per base. (The Armenian army has four bases of them.)

If I decided to add the Sabir, I would need to add the following:

• 1 General on foot as a Warband unit
• 5 Hunnic Warband units
• 5 Hunnic Bow units

As the Sabir as described as "exceedingly ferocious and rapacious". Hmmm. Might make for some interesting figures and a camp.

I am definitely going to use the same style of horse that I used for my Armenian horse archers, but I am considering using a different construction style for the riders. Partially, this is because I don't want them to look the same save for coloring. I believe the pointed, fur-trimmed hat will call for something different. I will start with a few experiments.

But, that is what is coming up next from me. Matt is on a 'wood hiatus' working on a project with metal figures (😝  I know, right?) so unless he gets bitten by a bug, it may be a while before we see any of his interesting creations. Hopefully he will figure out how to work wood into the terrain he is building for his project and we can see some of that.