Pause for the Cause

Its been a hard slog and I'm not done yet but I have broken the back of rearranging my room and have decided to pause for a much needed game.

House cleaning at Fort MacDuff. 

For the last month I have been contemplating the congestion and various possible solutions but in the end I could see no useful option that did not involve taking down the sorting and packing station that I had set up last year when I had a need to earn a few dollars by selling off some figures. That has passed but I've been dragging my heels because it was a lot of work to set up and I anticipated it being nearly as much to take it down and disperse it.

There were three main goals:

1. Reduce congestion when moving around the room and make room to have more than 1 guest over for gaming.  
2. Make room for a bigger table for special occasion
3. Get the table away from the window to make it easier to take pictures on bright days, esp as the sun is going down. 

Reducing the clutter would also be good but that's phase 2.

Looking North

As luck would have it my sister phoned a few weeks ago to ask if I wanted Mom's old kitchen table, our grandmother's before her I believe. It is a grand old round table with lion's feet dating back to around the turn of the 20th Century. This was more than a decade before my maternal grandparents left England so it probably came with the old farmhouse they ended up with in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. (about 40 km from the Fenian Raid "battle" of Eccles Hill. )  Well, the table I grew up eating at is now lodged in the kitchen of our old farmhouse and the table I bought for my first apartment in 1977 is now ensconced in my game room.

While the table would be, and has been in decades past,  suitable on its own for a small game, especially in 15mm or smaller, its not big enough for a standard game with big figures. However, with a protective cloth it is big enough to set a wargame table top on.  In the pictures I have used my current top now removed from its legs. I have experimented and it can be set up either way (esp once I finish moving the last bits like the filing cabinet with CD player on it). This means that on special occasions I could set up a 5x8 again. I don't expect to but do plan to set myself up with an 8x4 for special occasions leaving the 4x5 for ordinary days. There is room behind the long bookcase to stash the gaming top. Take the leaves out and the small round table slides easily on the floor and leaves ample room for a cot should I have overnight company willing to rough it in the midst of armies.

Looking South.
(goodness only been 8 years since I painted the floor and it already needs doing again)

The two main immediate chores that remain are sorting a few odds  and ends of furniture and finding somewhere to tuck all the stray figures, scenery, and various bits and bobs,  Later will come redecorating, paint, pictures etc.

But first, a game, tomorrow afternoon I hope.

While I'm rearranging the furniture

the lads took some exercise outdoors. Pity that there was neither time nor close cropped ground for a battle.

Beating around the bush.

Young braves cast in the mold of their ancestor

Yes, yes, this was supposed to wait until next year but I'm waiting for the new PA French Infantry moulds and I have been thinking about MacDuff and about my old Toy Soldiers and I want to play a game, but I promised myself I would fix some of the broken and chipped Indians before they appeared on the table again. Sooooo.......

The new and the repainted.

There are a few of my Britain's Indians that came from my own childhood collection. One of those was a one armed chief (or heroic warrior?) in a tight feather bonnet. I figured that as long as I was fixing him I might as well make an ordinary warrior running forward crouching with a rifle since that was what I needed most. I thought about adding a blanket to complete the description of the Cree advancing at Cut Knife Creek but decided that it was too limiting. By doing him in long hair and fringed shirt as shown above, he would be easy to convert to a bearded Metis in wide brimmed hat. 

My casting box with bottom 1/2 done..

I calculated that I had just enough putty left for one mould. I'm still a little uncertain about the putty vs traditional liquid rtv but if I could get a good mould, it is fast and I'm not exactly the patient type. Screwing up my courage (insert thought bubble of $$$ flying out the window) I mixed the first 1/2 and set to. At first I thought I hadn't mixed enough for the size of mould that I was planning and quickly adjusted the moveable blocks. Then I realized that it was an illusion and I actually had too much but it was already gelling so too late to readjust ($#^$#@$#@) . So I persevered, let it set 10 minutes, applied mould release gel. and mixed up a 2nd, smaller  batch, and applied it.    

One tip that I picked up too late last time, is that the putty does best if a bit of pressure is applied so that when it expands as it sets, it is forced tight up against the master. My box has a lid that can be screwed tight to apply just this sort of pressure so I dug out the top and used it. Seems to have worked thus far but I was pessimistic at best at the likelihood of a usable mould.
  

Waiting for the vault to reopen.

I had garden chores to attend to so I let the mould sit and cure while I worked. When I cracked it open, the mold release goop had mostly worked but I had trouble prying the two halves apart. Eventually I managed it without damage to the mould although the master lost his feather and dropped his rifle in the process. I wasn't too sure about what I found. Apart from one arm being buried, I like to have two fairly even, level, halves. In this case due to my initial miscalculation and the fact that one of the masters arms wasn't in line with his body, the mould look like a thick wedge with a thin lid.  Still, there was no point in not trying it.

A slippery slope.

The rubber is very soft and I'm not sure how long it will go without tearing but once vented the new mould  quickly produced 6 new warriors, no problems. This putty stuff may be alright after all!  Quick and easy. 

So, there are now a dozen repaired figures on the painting desk (mostly broken rifles with new barrels)  and brand new castings waiting in the wings. Can a game be far behind?

At Top, left to right: Another broken original, the modified broken figure, a new casting. 

In the meantime, I have been able to find out more about the Cyprus Hills Secret. Its not exactly what I thought but it would certainly have been a big scandal had it gotten out.  Some readers may be glad to know that the Government of the United States was not involved but that is all for a future post.

Security Guard of the Cyprus Hills Land and Transport Company.
Miniature Molds copy of an I/R original.