Speaking of which, and not that we were, but isn't it unsettling how one minute you're young and the next minute, you're not so young any more? I well remember the first time I saw U2s "Where The Streets Have No Name" video... that was twenty three years ago. I was made aware of this fact by one of my work colleagues' 12 year old son. I keep forgetting that in his presence, bringing up anything that happened before about 2005 is pretty much a waste of time. Fortunately I've been blessed by managing to avoid the scourge of the worldwide breeding epidemic that seems to have been going on for the past few billion years. Not that kids aren't fun, but it's nice being able to hand them back when their nappies need changing, or they cry a lot, or need a loan for a car etc. That's not fair - he's a great wee guy and if Claudia ever puts him up for sale (maybe not the other son) I might put in a bid.
Anyway, with that blog equivalent of freshly applied PolyFilla now behind us, I can report that I have finally recovered from my AO resin crisis. A fresh batch of 30-minute-cure stuff arrived and I got stuck into casting, using the whole 1L batch up in just a few days. One in the morning before work, one when I got home, another mid evening or before bed. That's one of the nice things about resin casting - instant gratification.
As feared, the first few of these will probably be junked because there were a few bits of residual stickiness in the nooks and crannies of the mold that took some cleaning out.
Yes, they are solid block castings. I had expected to put a 'plug' of rubber into the bottom of them, which would make them hollow to save resin and weight, but elected not to because this resin isn't that heavy, and I'm lazy. Excuses listed in reverse order. I want to get these things done and move on.
They are also cast in white resin rather than transparent as suggested by Steve4painting - an excellent idea, and one that I did consider, but my pusher of resins doesn't carry truly clear stuff, so for reasons of impatience and laziness and envy, greed, gluttony etc, I took the quick and easy route - so white they are.
The other nice thing about casting one-piecers like this in resin as that I basically have carriages now. No fiddling around trying to assemble sides and ends and roofs square and fill in the gaps. In theory I could plop on some bogies and paint and be done.
Yes, another crappy cameraphone pic in bad light... The AO front right is yet to have some fine sandpaper applied to the putty filling some air holes along the roof edge. When I remembered to run my stirring stick along those ledges in the mold (mid-pour) to free up the air bubbles I got very clean castings. On this one I obviously forgot...And finally, it seems we won't be running anywhere near a full-strength-Tranz afterall - a quick recount of the Kinki Kato bogies I ordered from Japan last year, reveals that I only have enough left for 8 cars rather than the 10 I had thought. Did I mention that I studied accountancy at university?
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