Re: Cardboard Armour (Don't tell Jon)

<snip>

>
>Medical gauze (clean, please) makes pretty good camo netting. As
follows:
>unfold the gauze to a single layer, pin it to something - a piece of
wood
>or something - and use fairly thick paint. While the paint is wet,
>sprinkle ground foam 'grass' on. Most of the foam will come off, but
the
>remainder has a fairly effective patchy look, with the net underneath.
>Looks pretty good, IMHO. (A really heavy camo job - net, foliage, etc -
>would help disguise the relative lack of detail on homegrown vehicles)
>

Good idea!!

<snip>

>On the subject of wheeled vehicles, does anyone have any ideas for
making
>wheels? I'd like to make a wheeled APC and various other wheeled
vehicles,
>but lack of good wheels is getting in the way. Wooden dowelling, maybe?
>Cut disks of the right thickness from dowel of the right diameter, then
>file tread patterns in and use a drill or something to get a sort of
hub?
>

A suggestion for the more keen among us...

How 'bout casting your wheels using RTV rubber as a mould.  RTV (room
temperature vulcanizing) rubber is great stuff, though a bit messy to
work
with.  It's available in 500ml (appx) sizes here in Toronto in various
hobby stores - you'd have to hunt around in your own areas.  The
vulcanizing process (which turns rubber from goo into the solid material
we
are familiar with - usually at high temperatures) is started by a
chemical
reaction and takes place at room temperature, so you don't need to cook
it,
etc.  You just mix a bit of catalyst into the RTV goo, pour into the
mould,
and wait 12 to 24 hours for it to harden.  With RTV, you can make a
rubber
mould of something, and cast lots of it yourself.  For armoured vehicle
wheels, you would need to produce ONE good one only (sculpt it yourself,
find one in someone else's kit, etc).  

I've done a number of model bits using this method - and if you're
careful
you can get some pretty good results.  I don't have the same equipment
at
home that the people who do cast resin kits use (such as vacuum chambers
to
de-gas the RTV), so my results aren't perfect, but with some simple
techniques they can be good.  I cast in a plastic material called
"Alumilite", which is a 2 part plastic resin that hardens in about 30
seconds when mixed.  You mix up a small amount, pour it into the mould,
and
you can demould in about 2 minutes.

I had to make a full-size model of a laptop computer a couple of years
ago,
and I used this method for the keys - moulded up about 120 or 130 over a
couple of evenings.  I made one mould of my master key (which I carved),
then cast 9 good ones, and made a nine-cavity mould.  Cast the rest from
the 9 cavity in one evening.  Time consuming and messy, but effective
method.

For AFV wheels, you could carve/sculpt/steal several sizes, and make one
mould with all of them - then cast a bunch at a time.

I realize this method won't be for everybody - but if anyone is
interested,
write me off list and I can provide you with more detail.

Adrian