Shockwave holding Shockwave should be a new meta. Still annoying how CW Shockwave can't be held by most figures due to the dumb peg design. Made an adapter for a non-destructive way to hold him. Thanks. Looks brighter in sunlight. Thanks. Still no plan to sell, though.
Understood, as someone who occasionally sells things he crafted(not toy related), it's hard to determine a good price, yeah it's easy to figure out what the materials cost but then there's the question of what's your time worth, that's where it gets tricky. Of course this is before you even get to distribution, shipping, etc. I'll continue to watch and be butthurt and maybe some day I'll get butthurt enough to start doing this my self.
I'd love to see the fins rotate in their peg-holes until the spikes were pointing upwards (and out), and then have the fins fold down flush with the sides of the car mode.
Yep, sometimes it takes me 2-3 days just to get one piece done alone, and that's not even including prep work and post-processing work. I would advise more people to get into the hobby...it's just kinda pricy to start. Thought about that too but it would require a whole new hinge system...which is more work than I'm willing to put into it at the moment.
Just a small example of post-processing work in the pic below. Did simple tape job before spray painting. The axe needed a lot of heavy sanding work and flash clean up (two part mold and one of the negatives of using this). Nowadays, I'm spending a lot of time doing post-processing stuff. Early on, it was just trying to pick off flash (excess resin at seams) with my fingers. Now it's using some sort of combination of razor work, sanding, adding extra resin, cutting holes to proper sizes, clear coats, painting, buffing, etc... I have lost quite a few pieces during post-processing work too, so it's not without risks either. Edit: Now getting the Decepticon car decal prepped for molding. Taking a while to get rid of all the black paint.
37b and 39b: Red versions of Siege Optimus Axe and Shield Again, the axe is a resin copy of Matrix Workshop's OP axe after it was sanded and cleaned up, and the shield is a resin copy of a zinc car decal. I tried to do fluorescent red initially but it came out either pink or purple with thin sections. Then I did transparent red instead, which turned out great. Transparent resin just doesn't hide the shield peg as well as the translucent fluorescent blue-green shield did. Now OP can dual wield. Used light gunmetal spray paint on the axe handles and hand attachments. If you want to match the original Matrix Workshop gunmetal color, then mix together Tamiya bottle regular gunmetal (almost black looking) and bottle metallic brown paints together.
1c. Brunt nozzles in different test colors Getting better at mixing dyes when using color matching resin. I'll often get leftover resin and then fill whatever mold is nearby. Brunt's nozzle (using my newer 2nd mold of this) is good to test with due to all the varying section widths. Fluorescent red ended up turning hot pink and also ended up causing shrinkage issues along with failed molds...probably from all the dye used trying to get it to look more red; the nozzle was the only cast that ended up good from that batch. Not shown: Modded pegs to become fully blast effects compatible (shortened and added 3mm port) Clear orange (more vibrant when casted in orange resin compared to the older one), fluorescent blue, fluorescent hot pink (supposed to be red, oh well)
Update to Pressure Pot Tutorial / Recipe: I added in some edits. I noticed that my pot was having some slow leaks after I turned off the overhead vent; now I can hear them. As I usually leave the compressor hose attached to the pot during molding / casting, the compressor will just kick in as needed and help maintain pressures (as needed is ok, continuous is not). If I'm juggling multiple pots, then this is a problem. Tiny / slow leaks give off a very faint hissing sound. If you make a cup shape with your hand, you can go around the lid bottom and around all the fittings to see where the leak is coming from. The hiss sounds will get louder when your hand gets near the leak. I noticed one in the ball valve exhaust fitting (plus, I had it on backwards in terms of the lever [bending the bar to make it work is fine]; would have left it alone if it wasn't for the leak). Detached the ball valve fitting, re-taped the threads and added the proper adapter for lever orientation, and put the ball valve back on. The ball valve no longer leaked, but then I noticed a different leak where the nipple (I don't make up these terms) is attached to the lid. Air will go through least resistant areas first, so you may need to repeat this process for various areas. Detached the nipple, re-taped the threads, and put the nipple back on. Now there's no more leaks. When using the pipe wrench on the nipple, sometimes the wrench may create small sharp spurs or other sharp areas. I ended up getting a small cut on my hand. To fix this, use low grit (100 or 150) sandpaper and sand away any sharp bits.
40. Custom resin copy of Lionizer's blade piece. Meaning to do this for a while and used some leftover resin from another batch of casts to make this piece. The resin is cast in fluorescent purple. Lights up fairly well in sunlight. The kibble to blade ratio of Lionizer's alt mode is pretty bad, but he makes for a much better spear tip or pike.
41. Custom Decepticon Insignia Shield and 42. Custom blade for Dr. Wu Asura sword. OP can't have all the fun after all. Both are casted in fluorescent purple resin. The Decepticon shield is also molded from a car zinc decal. Despite being made from the same company (officially licensed ones that I got from a local Auto Zone), the Decepticon version is noticeably smaller than the Autobot one. I have attempted long blades before but they usually failed due to mold problems. This was the first time it actually worked. The Asura sword is kept together by 2 screws. It comes with 2 handles and you have to take it apart if you want to use the MP handle. This is also useful for taking out just the blade part and making a mold of that. WIP: Smoke (transparent black) versions: This is what it looks like after pulling them from the molds. Before this, I baked the molds for 2 hours at 150F (accelerate hardening) after they finished curing in the pressure pot. Took almost 1.5 hours for the Decepticon shield to cool down fully. Then I pulled the casts out of the molds. Already been working on post-processing for a while now...
41b and 42b: Smoke (transparent black) deco of custom Decepticon Insignia Shield and Dr. Wu Asura blade. Surprised I actually finished this today. Was expecting another 3 day project but finished in 2. Used a tiny amount of So Strong (transparent) black dye in crystal clear resin. Cut out air vents to ensure no air bubbles as well as generous resin well pockets. 32c: Fluorescent versions of Omega Supreme's blast effects Didn't make very many of these. Sometimes I'll pour leftover resin into previously used molds. This is fluorescent purple and blue-green (mostly blue with a touch of green). To make the explosive bases darker, used Tamiya clear paint with a teeny bit of purple resin dye (Tamiya doesn't make clear purple bottle paint) on the purple pieces and Tamiya clear blue on the blue pieces.
33b. Siege Barricade "Box Art" Mod: Black Feet I had made a set of black feet parts earlier but wasn't exactly happy with how they turned out. Molded the feet parts again and they came out much better this time. Used color matching resin with opaque black resin dye. I'm not going to paint the purple window sides black to truly do the Box Art mod 100% (the paint will likely scuff off). These are the pieces after pulling them from the molds. The pieces on the right are flash and the resin wells (used to help provide extra resin in the pressure pot to fill in gaps). To disassemble the feet, you have to take out the pins: one from each foot. One foot on mine had no knurls on the pin, so it was easy to remove. The other foot, for mine at least, didn't take much force to push out the pin. The knurled end is at the "toes" or front of the foot. Use a nail or drill bit around 1.5mm or slightly less, place in the back of the foot as shown, and then use pliers to grip the nail or bit and push the pin out (the silver one in the pic). For those who want better access to paint the feet, this would help too.
43. Fixing Matrix Workshop's Prowl kit I'm getting sick of fixing their stuff. This is now the 4th kit I have from them with oversized pegs and undersized ports. I have the Barricade kit sitting somewhere in US customs, which is one of their newer ones. If that kit also has the same peg and port problems, then I'll have to stop buying their kits. The silver blaster on mine had a warped nozzle and used a heat gun to fix that. The pegs are around 5.3mm wide (5mm is normal). This is enough to make pegs not fit and/or potentially cause damage (break pegs off and then get stuck, break thin walled ports). The port on the silver blaster is also too small (4.8mm), so if you try to force the side cannons into there, you will break the blaster. There is no QC whatsoever. Used the box / rectangle type precision file to file away at the pegs. Your goal is 5mm....a little above is fine and preferred. Use digital calipers to constantly measure and make sure you don't go over. For the round peg, one axis will be too big at 5.3mm but the other one will be normal at 5mm. So, file away at the 5.3mm sides. For the round peg, if you overshoot, that's OK, because the other axis will still be at 5mm and fit snug. For the flat pegs, you have to be very, very careful and not overshoot. Otherwise, there's no great way to fix that (epoxy putty is one idea, though). Pic note: Filing at the flat peg. This is a good time to STOP. The flat pegs are actually too big in both axes. Should be closer to 2.5mm and not 2.6mm. Have to be very careful and not overdo the filing. This small difference now allows the pegs to plug comfortably into the shoulder ports. The flat pegs are also TOO LONG for both Prowl's shoulder ports AND the silver blaster, so you also have to sand down the length of the pegs. The pegs have notches on them. If you take off one notch-worth of material (PLA sands fast, so be careful), that's enough to fit in Prowl's shoulder ports but still too big for his silver blaster. You need to take off just under 2 notch-worth of material if you also want them to sit flush in the silver blaster. The port is too small. I used a drill bit to extend them just enough for the flat pegs to fit in. One side of the blaster looks good, but unfortunately, the other has chips. I'll fix those with epoxy putty later. I would recommend using a thin precision file to extend the ports. Edit: Safer / better option is to use a circular cone shaped precision file to extend the port. Now everything is filed down to size. Everything now fits like it should have in the first place. Edit: Further work on the Prowl kit here: Various mods (of mods), custom stuff
Why do I feel like me getting a pair of calipers to measure my Matrix Workshop handles and prevent breakage like you document above is going to be the gateway "drug" to getting into customizing/molding like you do at some point? But seriously, awesome tutorials, thank you!
You seem like you would know how to do this, I wanna mod the chest plate of my TR hotrod, 1. I need to know a good tool to cut plastic to make a perfect transformation 2, adding a double hinge to the chest to give him a barel chest like the MTMTE version Id aporeciate the help, but you absolutely dont have to
Thanks. Didn't plan on doing so much stuff originally. Calipers wasn't my gateway but rather having a son that has a tendency to break things and daddy figuring out ways to fix them. Depends on the shape and what materials you're using. Yeah, dremel is helpful. Metal ruler and scoring knife is helpful for straight lines. I have a band saw but I usually use that for wood projects. Compact hinges are much more difficult to add on, especially double ones. Most people find the smallest hinges they can find at the hardware store and use those. Very few people would be able to craft their own pieces with an integrated hinge system, unless you go the 3d printed route. I can't picture in my head what you want to do, though. Edit: Of course, no matter what you do, as long as there's enough material, you can always sand your way to clean edges and finishes.
