Blood Worm Membros

Sometimes you get stupid and sometimes you get lucky.  This was the one time I got both.

There was a multi action figure ebay auction.  In this auction was a white Emperor among other figures.  It was what I was after believing I didnt have one.  However at the time, it had been a long time since I had been through the closet and I didnt have an inventory list. 

The seller had a few other things in the auction.  Including a Hero Factory  Space Glider still in its baggie.  The seller thought this was the diamond in the rough figure.  I have 265 of those.  2 cases yet unopened.  There was another figure in this lot.  From the picture it looked like a black Membrose.  Yawn.  Back to the Grey or off white Emperor.  That was the prize in this lot.  SO I thought.

I won the auction.  When it arrived, I stared going through the closet to put it away.  WHATS THIS?!?!?  I already had an off white Emperor.  I didnt need to buy this auction at all.  If only I wasnt so stupid and had inventoried my collection.

Hold on...WTF...Whats this???  In the auction, the picture was dark in the one area and didnt reflect the actual colors of one of the figures.  Membros.  In the photo he looked like a typical all black Membros.  But thats not what this was.  This is an official unofficial Palisades run off.  Palisades didnt make any red clear Membros.  Yet this Membros has Red Clear Arms and clear red cuffs for the accessories.  I later found out that there were less than 10 of these figures made and at least half were mistakenly shipped out with the rest of the production figures.  And here I had recieved it by bidding on an auction by mistake.  Had I known I already had an off white Emperor, I would never have bid on the auction.  Further digging revealed it to be called "The Bloodworm Membros"

Altho the cover photo is a little dark, you can clearly see the clear red Membros arms and Cuffs and the figure is MOC.

Stupid and Lucky.  Both at the same time.  Usually its just the Stupid part, but its nice to be lucky every once in a while.  :~)

Wasnt That A Party!!!

Well the 2010 Grey Cup has come and gone.

MAN!!! What a party.  Tailgate parties/hot tub parties and of course the typical keg parties were everywhere.  The 2010 Grey Cup was the largest and most successful party to date.  Of course that was due to all the Saskatchewan fans who basically turned Edmonton Alberta into Edmonton Saskatchewan.

It was sold out.  I was cheering for both teams, But I am an Anthony Calvillo fan.  He's the quarterback for the Montreal Allouettes.  A future Hall of Famer.  So I bought a Montreal jersey.  Bring your sense of humor.  WOW was I out numbered.  VERY outnumbered.  Someone had to cheer for Montreal and Im a glutton for punishment...It was the best time I have had in a long while.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was a few rows down below me.  I spent the first quarter taking pictures of the costumes people were wearing.  I'll say this...Saskatchewan fans are very loyal and playful.  They are without a doubt the best and noisiest fans in the CFL. 

At the beggining of the game the Snowbirds came in formation.  I thought I was gonna lose my mind.  You could see them approach on the Jumbotron.  But what wasnt on the Jumbotron, were the 2 CF-18's that came in so low, I swear they actually flew into the stadium, they were that low.  I lost my hearing.  It was so FN loud.  Of course they were so quick, I couldnt get a picture.  And it was so cold, my camera kept acting up.  I had to keep it warm by stuffing it down my pants or it wouldnt work.

The Halftime entertainment featured BTO.  Man, those boys can still crank it out.  They took a few pages from Motley Crue with the pyrotechnics.  The cold froze the zoom feature so I didnt get any close ups.  Bummer.  Earlier pregame entertainment featured 5 other bands including Great White.  The even had a zip line for people to try.  It was very cool.  I tried to get a picture of this one girls cleavage, but Gumby kept sticking his head in between her boobs everytime I went to take the picture.  I should have given him the camera.

This was the second year in a row that these 2 teams met in the Grey Cup.  Montreal has won both times.  I picked Montreal to win because Athony Calvillo is the master of the clock.  He doesnt panic and knows how to use the clock to his advantage.  While the game was closer than I expected it to be, Montreal did win.  But it was close.  It took a last minute interception for Montreal to seal the deal. 

It'll be another 8 or 10 years before we see another Grey Cup here in Edmonton.  And Im gonna be there.  Im keeping these season tickets.  It was worth it.

Altho the Edmonton Eskimos really sucked this year, All the teams were represented in some form by their cheerleaders.  And the Edmont Eskimo Cheer Team proved that they are without a doubt THE BEST in the league.  While most teams have strictly Cheerleaders, The Eskimos also have men on the Cheer Team.  This allows for more acrobatics.  I mean man can they throw those cheerleaders high!!!

             Moses is a                Saskatchewan Fan!

CLEAVAGE SHOT!!!

BTO-Bachman Turner Overdrive is Taking Care Of Business!!!

This stupid mascot kept throwing his head forward and back.  I lost my lunch laughing so hard.  All the plummage would flare up when he did it.  It was hilarious.

            Fireworks or                 rather some of them.

                                           Edmonton Eskimo Cheer Team.

                                          More BTO !!!  YEAH BABY!!!

                                            The Jumbotron.

SO here's a few pics of the Grey Cup and some of the costumes I managed to get pictures of.  Just click on them to enlarge.

There arent any pictures of any Montreal Fans because...Well there werent very many.  Or at least very few dressed up.  I mean it when I say this game was dominated by Saskatchewan fans.  The attendance record was set by Edmonton VS Saskatchewan last year and eclipsed by this Grey Cup game.



         Now lets get back to making more Action Figures!!!

A Near Death Experience

I came home from work.  I wanted to hurry up and get some casts made.  I went into the basement where unfortuneatley I have to keep Sable as she has been ripping the house to shreds when alone.  There is the crawl space and the laundry room.  The crawl space goes under half the house and opens up in to the laundry/furnace room and on the other side of the basement under the stairs.  There is a wooden baby gate to block it off.  There is a little hallway from under the stairs to the door leading upstairs and beside it the door to the laundry room and another straight ahead into the finished basement where I am doing my casting.  I keep this door closed AT ALL TIMES as do I my collection room.

THANKFULLY!!!  Sable destroyed the baby gate, chewed the wood to splinters, pulled all the clothes off the dryer and some that were hanging up.  She pulled up and destroyed the carpet to the point I couldnt open the main door into the basement hallway.  She destroyed home 45mm reel movies and worst of all...

In the basement hallway is my grandmothers old Singer Sewing machine from 1912 I believe...could be as late as 1917.  Its on there I just forgot.  But when its down it makes a nice little table.  And its the perfect size for my Chess Set.  While all the doors were closed, Sable went around under the stairs destroyed the baby gate and now had complete access to the basement hallway.  But thats as far as she could go.  And as far as she needed to go in order to get to My Custom Micronaut Chess Set. 

Black Membros (Bishop) and The Black Defender (King) were totalled beyond repair.  The bases will have to be repolished to see if I can get all the marks out.  If not, I will have to make two more.  The figures will have to be replaced.  I still havent found Membros head.  The Galactic Defender can probably be salvaged for a few parts.

Yup...It was a near death experience.  She doesnt know how close she came.  I have never owned such a stubborn and destructive dog such as this in my life.  Never let anyone else pick out your dog or give you one as a gift.  Picking a dog is just as important as picking a partner.  Now to see what I can do about the carpet.  Shit.

One More Reason To LOVE Sprue Molds

As if my love affair for sprue molds needed more reasons to keep me happy.

Here is one more reason to use a sprue mold if you have the choice.  Smush Mold...resin in 1/2 of the mold and resin in the other half of the mold.  Smush em together, pressurize if possible and cure. 

How many things can go wrong here?  You can trap air in the mold.  You inadvertently orient the mold wrong and in your panic, all the resin runs out.  You wait too long to put the 2 halves together and the resin has already started curing and now you cant get the 2 halves of the mold tightly together giving you an oversize and distorted cast.  Once cast, if there is an air bubble somewhere, its very hard to fix.

Those are the most common things to go wrong.  Here's is how a Sprue Mold overcomes these issues.

The mold is already together when you pour the resin.  Guaranteeing you a close to accurate cast size.  So your biggest worry here is The Shrinkage Rate.  Expect 3%-5% of total size lost.  Since the Mold is preassembled prior to pour, there is no chance of improperly orienting the cast halves. 

But here is my favorite.  A sprue mold relies on the basic concepts of physics.  Gravity.  gravity pulls things down.  So when you pour a cast, gravity pulls the fluid resin down.  It will follow the channels pushing the air out in front of it.  IF something does go wrong, its usually at the end of a pour. 

Recently after I poured a sprue mold, when I took it out of the pressure pot, the air pressure had pushed the resin deep into the mold forcing the air out via the channel.  I had thought the mold full when I put it in the pot only to find that because of the air pocket the cast was no incomplete.  There wasnt enough resin poured into the mold now.

Because of the expereince I have had curing 2 separate colors together, I simply made a little bit more resin.  Carefully put the mold back together with the cast still in it and poured the resin into the mold ontop of the previous cast.  It filled it in beautifully.  You wouldnt know if I didnt tell you.  And if I didnt know, I wouldnt be able to tell.  Its a PERFECT fix.  Try doing that with a smush mold.  Most likely you would scrap the piece and try to make a new one.

Also, in areas that might trap air in the cast, you simply create (cut) a small air pocket where the problem is.  It pushes the air up into the pocket so that the resin can fill in the mold.

Yup, there are so many plusses to sprue molds.  But Smush molds are still easier and involve less trimming and are VERY goos for hi detail parts.  But you will have more scrap if you arent careful.

Resin Mixing Ratios

Every resin has a mixing ratio.  The ratio is how much of Part A to mix with how much of part B.

And then there is the fine print.  The wuh?  Yes...the Fine Print.  Fine Print is what we dont see because we think we know it all.  And then all of a sudden everything goes kerfluey and we dont know why.  Because we didnt see and read the Fine Print.

The Fine Print says...Mixing Ratio "X amount" of A: "X amount" of B......and this is the important part...By Volume "X amount A: "X amount" B by  Weight. 

And some resins, MOST in fact have 2 ratios.  1 ratio is for WEIGHT and 1 ratio is for VOLUME.  The weight ratio is the one that is usually the weird ratio.  100:80 or 100:90.  The volume ratio is usually closer to a 50/50 or 1:1 ratio.  Last week or so when I first made the Roboid molds I was having issues with my urethane resin.  Why?  because I was confusing the volume and weight ratios.  I was trying to measure the weight and instead adjusted the volume and it impacted the resin in a negative way. 

You cant measure weight with measuring spoons.  Measuring spoons measure volume.  And thats exactly what I did...or attempted to do. 

Since I dont have a scale, I have been measuring by volume.  When you get the volume ratio right, the weight ratio will be correct and visa versa.

Thank You Bry

Homeworld wishes to send out a big THANK YOU...a HUGE THANK YOU to Bry Wilkinson for his part in the Pass Around Project.  There are a few more people as well, but Im not quite sure who is all involved.  So I do apologize for not mentioning anyone else.  Im also not sure how others feel about having their names blogged.

But Bry was instrumental in getting me to do this project.  I originally turned it down.  At the time I didnt think I had the required skills and practices of casting to do a proper job.  But by the time I recieved the parts, I had the right equipment and sufficient confidence that I knew I could do it.  All I needed was the time.   I know I have had this figure here since february of this year, so he has been quite awhile without his figure.  A few years at the very least.  I think the only person left to cast this figure now is him. 

So once again, Thank You Bry for letting us use your figure and to the others who have also so graciously lent their parts to this project, Im sorry I dont have your names.  But Thank you all for your generosity and your patience.  This is awesome.

Tankless Compressor

Our garbage bin at work is a gold mine.  The things people throw away.  As you know I got my compressor from there.  Well now someone has thrown a substantially quieter Tankless Compressor away.  It works great.

A tankless compressor is exactly that...tankless.  It doesnt store air is very lightwieght and compact.  Its smaller than your average vacuum cleaner.  It usually only pumps up to 100 psi.  We need 35-50 psi.  More than sufficient.  It can be used for the exact same things as a simple compressor or for any application requiring 100psi or less. 

So Im running the compressor back out to the garage and now have a tankless compressor to use in the house.  Hmmmm...now if I had a second pressure pot, I could really stack myself up with work.  lol.

Pressure Pot Maintenance Advice

Im known for over tightening things.  Everything from pop bottles to nuts and bolts.  Its something I have to be careful of.  Its a natural habit for me to make sure things are snug. 

When you overtighten things, as with metal fasteners, you are creating stresses and strains.  You are squishing the threads together.  Eventually the metal will tear a little bit and start to gall up and tear in the thread.  This makes it harder and harder to turn till eventually it siezes up.

If you have the same issue as I do and even if you dont, I recommend putting some anti-sieze compound of some type on your lid clamp down threads of your pressure pot.  I use a nickel based antisieze.  There are lots out there all of them just as good as the other.  You have metal turning against metal.  You wouldnt run your engine without motor oil.  This is exactly the same.  They sieze.  Just the results of not using anti sieze are alot less traumatic and costly than running a motor without oil.

You'll be extending the life of your pressure pot substantially.