Stouffville, Ontario Canada (647) 962-1997 gwstudios@rogers.com M-F 8:30am - 2:30pm & 8:00pm - 11:00pm

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RESIN KIT: Part two, the one where things go awry.

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Something to keep in mind when you choose to work with resin, and resin based kits. The material is brittle, doesn’t handle torque particularly well, and warps like a mother fucker. Nothing a bit of hot water, clamps and a flat surface can’t handle, but expect delays, and lots, and lots of additional work that you wouldn’t find with a Bandai quality plastic snap fit model.

Also, rule #2, for anybody keeping track, casting quality. Pay the premium for high quality casts from the original developer, don’t chince out and buy a recasting, as the quality will suffer, and add considerable time to your build. That’s IF you can over come the casting deficiencies you encounter. I can sculpt, but I don’t do hard edged mechanical stuff, so my best hope is that the outer armor has better casting quality that will hide much of the misshapen, or poorly defined details of the internal structure. Round holes are oblong, octagonal holes for nuts, are off centre and warped, details are lumpy masses, so… yeah. Don’t get suckered into buying the 1/3 priced stuff, as it’s going to cost you in the end anyway.

But, having said that I have managed, over the last five or six days, to build up roughly 80% of the internal structure for this massive (comparatively) model kit. I have the feet, legs, waist, lower torso, arms & shoulders built. I just need to figure out the upper torso and electronic wiring harness portion, and then I can wash (again – to remove all of the mould release agent) and begin to prime the internal bits. I’m ok if test fitting armor panels rubs off the primer, it will help me achieve a better fit. Plus painting won’t start for a while, beyond the priming stage. I may get this to a point where I can leave it for a good stretch, for a rainy day, or the cold weather again.

I started late because I was intimidated by all the resin (And Covid), and just how much fixing, and rejiggering I knew I was going to need to do. But now that I’m in it, and not in a rush, I am not too overwhelmed by it anymore. Funny how that works. Also for one thing the pour spouts on every single piece of armor need to be cut off, and sanded, which is several weeks worth of work. I can do that when I stop going outdoors due to the cold. I now, as the temperatures rise, want to work outside, or in my garage shop. I’ve made considerable headway on my Urn build, and I need to sand, test fit, pilot hole drill, and paint the Moose fence topper for my parents. Then figure out shipping across Canada to Campbell River BC.

So I promised some pictures, here they are in no particular order.

The feet, legs, groin, waist portion loosely assembled as a cohesive unit. With the arms and shoulders set on the table, elbows facing up.
A closer look at the messy details of the resin castings on the internal frame. Yikes!
A size comparison of the legs & waist to a finished MG Gundam ZZ. This thing should be between 16-18 inches tall when all is said and done. A real chonker.

I spent some time on Saturday while it was warm working through the Urn build. I used wood filler to plug the pin head nail holes. I also touched up one mitered corner on the tray, and assembled the cover that goes over the main chamber & nesting tray. I have an obscene amount of sanding to do, and then a wipe on, polish off wax finish that I hope makes it all look cohesive, and wonderful. No stain for this one, just clear coat. I am toying with the idea of using a bit of trim around the base, but we’ll see how it all turns out after sanding, and rounding over some edges with a router. Easter weekend quickly approaches. I wanted to hand it off then. So I best get cracking! Ciao Bella!

Disillusioned by the sun.

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Oh boy! She sure is shining sunny and bright this morning, it must be absolutely lovely outside! FALSE! It is currently minus eleven (-11) heading to the balmy temperature of minus nine (-9) to then hover somewhere around minus four (-4) for the rest of the day, that is until the sun sets once more and the temperatures plummet again. Spring, especially early spring around here is a nightmare to plan for. Will it be hotter and sunny, windy and cool, rainy and cold, blustery and frigid? Sun, rain, wind, snow all on the same day? Sure thing pal, we got it coming right up. Special order just to ruin your day. Start the afternoon at the park sweating through your sweater, leave shivering in the freezing rain and flurries, and deeply plunging temps. Such fun! The ground is a soft mush, that smells awful. Puddles are stagnant and salty from the road grit getting pushed up onto the lawns.

I was thinking of taking my older child to see the new D&D movie, but I think it may be too scary. Lots of dead ghouls and jumping mimics and such. Not sure she can take that sort of a theater experience just yet. I wish that Mario Bros movie was out all ready. That looks silly, and colourful, and kinda fun.

I was going to do a brief write up about my resin build, but I will do that later this coming week, with photos! Oh, colour photos. Nice. So sit tight for that juicy piece.

I did something yesterday, I bought something for the house. No not a water softner or fridge. Though I feel the softner will come into play within the next two to three weeks. Don’t you worry about that. No, what I bought was a smaller generator for the house. Something that can run the fridge, and charge a phone & tablet for 11 hours on a single tank of regular 87 proof gasoline. Coming up on one year since the May 2-4 Djerecho wind storm, and twenty six plus hours without power. Now I didn’t buy a huge, nor massively expensive machine, so I can’t keep the AC going, nor fully power a house. But I can atleast keep our food from going bad. Which cost me half of what I paid for the generator, so I think it’ll be worth it over a few years of use. Plus – I can take it to the cottage, or out and about to run smaller power tools, where cords won’t reach. Utility. Functionality. A pre-planned preparation for the frequent black outs and power outages that we get here in Whitchurch-Stouffville every single summer. Now that’s what I call smarts. Plan ahead!

So nothing much on the docket for this lazy Sunday in what is now April. Didn’t see or hear too many April Fools jokes this year. They seem to fall flat during this time of Covid, and the mass waves of disinformation efforts coming from every conceivable grift opportunity. I saw what turned out to be AI generated images for an infant’s sky diving school. I saw Dave Bautista’s faux comedy special ad on Twitter, and there was something else but I can’t remember it, so it must not have been that funny/memorable. Maybe next year! Ciao Bella.

Patience can be rewarded, or be used against you when it comes to accounts payables.

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Nobody likes to chase money, when I decided to go full time (or close enough to) as a freelancer the last thing on my mind was how much time I’d wind up spending thinking about, worrying about, dreaming about; money. I far prefer to do the design & production work, than to do my books. I am very fortunate in that my clientele pay me on a reasonable basis, for which I am deeply grateful. It wasn’t always this way. Back in the early days when I made $7,000-$10,000 in a year if I had a client fail when they still owed me over a thousand bucks, that was a hard blow to take. I never did see that money. I threatened to go to collections, but the company dissolved once the property they operated out of sold, and the equipment was auctioned off for parts. It still hurt me deeply. So now I will send an invoice monthly, rather than wait for a potentially months long series of projects to come to a close. You may not see every penny, but remaining afloat will relieve a bunch of stress, and leave more brain power to focus on the quality of your work, and not developing grey hairs from stress.

Do with that information what you will. If you wait too patiently to submit an invoice the AP folks may not honour it as it’s too far out of date. You really need to know a clients payment habits, and SOP when it comes to submitting an invoice. That kind of mistreatment should sour a relationship immediately. Rush to supply them artwork, but wait 90 to 120 days for a partial payment. These types of groups should be avoided. Pure aggravation. Do not reccomend.

My personal goal is to get popular enough that I can work forty hours a week, have five weeks of vacation time to be with my kids, and make enough to save for family trips, entertainment, and to cover off various peripheral living expenses with the household. I don’t think I’d ever want to get big enough to have to take on staff, and rent premises to operate out of. That’s too much stress and worry, and requires an awful lot of capital up front. Yikes. Then I’d need HR policies, training guidelines, be looking after hiring & firing. All the management style stuff I detest. I just like the work. I like designing and solving art based problems. I’m done with people and office politics, and all that additional stress. Yuck! How are you supposed to sleep at night when you now know you are responsible for the gainful employment of others. Argh! No. No thanks. Making payroll while waiting on clients to pay! I guess at that point you’d have to institute a retainer system, and then charge over top so that you always had some funds available from every client on hand to pay for fixed costs (think rent, insurance, subscriptions, payroll, heat & hydro), and then top that up, make your profit from the big ticket invoices once those actually get paid. I can only imagine how much time and energy an agency is required to put into client retention, and growth for finding more paid work, or partnerships for tasks you’d like to outsource. Boggles the mind how intricate this sort of thing can get.

Anyway. It is early Saturday morning, and my oldest is out doing Ringette lessons, coupled with power skating. Had to have new skates and a brand new helmet in order to participate. It was offered to the youngest too, but she turned her nose up. I think she regrets that choice now, after the new helmet & skates turned up for the older one. Wait listed now, so no chance she gets in to the program now. Stouffville is big on skating, and ice pad related activities.

Interrupting this interruption with a little disruption.

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Disruption and influencers. Two words I could do without hearing for a very, very long time. Marketing jargon is such a joy kill. Don’t get me started. I digress.

Had high hopes for finishing a bunch of projects by the end of March, but due to weather conditions, and other interruptions such as catching Covid and being sick for thirteen days, has pushed everything back for two weeks. Wasn’t even able to use the down time to read my book. That days long unceasing eye pain, head ache, and brain fog was really a horrible experience. Let us pray it hasn’t done any major lasting damage to my noggin.

So things left unfinished from March: Resin kit internal structure build, Mo Hayder’s “Ritual” only half finished, the Urn still requires a cap, pin head fillers, and hours of sanding, and clear coat finishing. I see the next few weeks might get up into the double digit range, so perhaps I can get more done as the weather changes. One can hope!

I have to step out today for a dermatology appointment for my kid, so I’m not likely to get a tonne of stuff done this afternoon. But hey it’s friday, so hope you all have a great weekend!

RESIN: The journey begins. Part 1 of 20.

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I took my second tentative stab at working 9n my resin project yesterday. I’m not sure how much I should count the first attempt from several years ago. I guess since I started to clip off the resin pour gates it should count for something, I suppose. Yesterday I put some time & effort into sanding, gluing, and assembly of the inner structure. After the few hours I put in to the feet, calves, and shin portions, I think this is going to take me several weeks to complete. And that may not even include priming, painting, and the final metal detail bits, nor the massive water slide decal sheets. But, I have started and made considerable progress! Yahoo!

The other thing I have come to realize is I must have bought a recasting, mainly because the box doesn’t have the hologram  stickers on it, and the multi colour cast resin, is not the appropriate red, yellow, grey, and white as mentioned in the instructions, but 90% beige, and 10% grey. Plus the castings aren’t very crisp, and lots of the holes are plugged and need to be drilled out. But! He says, but… I’m only working through the internal structure right now, and I don’t intend to make the armor removable, so I think, with a high chance of certainty, that much of the blemishes and such will be covered up by the big chunky armor plates. Now if those suffer from the same quality issues, I might have a problem. But battle damage, and weathering could potentially cover that up if need be. I probably shouldn’t have been so worried about building it, as it has some quality issues that I can’t do much about, besides work around it all. Although truth be told, I am glad I did those two Macross Valkyrie VF-1’s recently, that has given me more confidence to tackle what looks to be a 16 inch tall model, possibly taller with antennas, and metal spiky bits. I’d love to use my USAF colour scheme on this item too. I really like the cool blue greys I used on my latest Macross Gerwalk model. I will need to source a high quality yellow paint, as the yellow ink doesn’t cut it. To Amazon then! Or I’ll find a very light brown that I can tint with the yellow ink. We’ll see what the budget is like after tax time.

It all started with the hips. Then putting the gigantic feet together.
The calves enter the conversation.
Parts break down for removal of gates, pour spouts, and some rough sanding.
Dry fit parts for subsections of the build. Shoulders, forearms, elbow joints, chest, waist etc etc…
The chest in its chunky glory.
Upper thighs and groin (which has a tonne of flashing, and miss moulded parts).
The box with all the other parts still bagged up waiting for my attention. Hours, days, weeks worth of work without any painting included.

So that’s where I am right now. I will soon get the second leg as far along as the first one, then I’ll tackle the arms and torso. Wish me luck!

Wearing my Handy-Man pants for a brief shining moment.

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It took a while to find the part I needed but I did manage to change a brake light bulb that had burned out on my wife’s car. Took all of four minutes once I had the correct bulb in hand. I spent more time looking for a part number than I did doing much of anything else, other than driving to & from Canadian Tire. For less than $8.00 I made it street legal once more. All I needed were two different types of screw driver, and about four minutes time. Glad we can avoid any sort of traffic ticket regarding the tail lights. Go team!

I always wanted to learn more about cars, but those would be the types of vehicles from the 90’s, you know the pre-computer regulates everything, type of cars & trucks. When you had more mechanical solenoids to regulate operations in your car, and not lines of code. It’s a shame you can’t just bust out a bridgeport mill & welder to fix parts any more. Not that I can do much with either at the moment, but I can learn! Now it’s all cameras and touch screens and plastic, or polycarbonate this, that, and the other. Planned obsolescence and all that greedy bullshit. Bah! Beside changing my tires, light bulbs, and adding fluids, or an oil change there isn’t much i can do to fix any of our vehicles. Wouldn’t mind learning how to do brakes, and rotors, but if you fuck that up you crash and potentially kill people.

Oh, since the weather has managed to climb just over 0° C recently I have once again been able to pick up the Urn build for brief stints. It is going to require a fair amount of TLC, for the cold weather glue ups that left residue behind. Glad I’m just clear coating and not staining this, as it would wind up being streaky AF. I have the top tray built, glued & assembled. I went with a Royal blue felt liner. Looks tasteful. I felt the green might be too “Machinists Tool Box”, so blue it is! I have to shave down the tops a bit for a suitable flush final fit. Then I need to plug pin nail head holes, add any final trim, and build the cap/lid/cover. Then sand until I’m sick to death of doing so. Then add the high polished clear coat finish.

More glue ups with clamps.
Pieces of the top tray portion.
Tray fits, not too snug. Needs to be planed flush.

I also have the fence topping moose for my folks to complete. It needs a good sanding, test fit with pre-drilled holes, priming, and then painting, then a clear coat. Get disassembled and flat packed to be shipped across the country to my folks in Campbell River BC. That should be done by end of April if the weather gets nicer.

Rough cut moose fence topper.

Wednesday – Hump Day – Middle of the Week Day! It’s here and cold, with lots of wind on the way. I will be glad that I cleared all of the brush yesterday morning, because more will fall out of the old trees today, believe you-me. I will end up needing to sharpen my hedge trimmer, Swede saw, secateurs and long handled loppers. Going to be a busy spring with lots of damaged limbs to prune back nicely, in an attempt to not let my trees, shrubs, and bushes become diseased or die. The ice, and wet heavy snow did a real number on all of our old growth Lilacs. I have an old Maple on the front lawn that’s been dropping branches and bark for a while now. It’ll have to come down within the next 3-5 years. Possibly sooner if the stripped bark causes additional issues. I’d love to have the main lower trunk cut into slabs for furniture builds for the house. Tables, chairs, and desks for both kids. I have plans for all that wood!!!

What is going on with these ref’s and umpires the last few years?

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Feels as though much of major league sports is grinding to a halt with hyper sensitive referees and umpires and shit. Horrific missed calls, just blatant injection of themselves into the flow of the game, and drawing attention to themselves out of a perverse sense of narcissism. Think Angel Hernandez and MLB. People of that ilk that can blow up a game, or throw it in a teams favour by being outrageously awful. Why do we never hear of these officials getting reprimanded for these egregious outbursts, and blatant contempt for their role in the game. Boggles the mind. Blown calls are everywhere, NBA, MLB, NFL, you name it. Makes watching a rage inducing event. What a mess.

Today is Tuesday. Spent a good portion of yesterday chasing down quotes for my water softner issues. I had quotes from $1,700 all the way up to $4,000.00 plus change. I’m fairly certain I can buy a generic system from Home Depot, or some other big box store for around $1,000.00. I get that labour costs are a real thing, but some of these quotes were outrageous. Right now I have the system shut off, so atleast there should be no more floods for a bit. I can get the salty brine stains cleaned up, and have the dehumidifier pull all that excess moisture out of the sub floor. It never ends.

I think I’m going to do some limb clearing in a moment. Ice storms, and heavy snows broke a whole bunch of branches off my Lilac trees in the back yard. Best go cut that down, and keep the grass cleared of debris. No point having dead patches that last all summer long. Will need to sort out the droop in our back deck this year too. One of the pilings is sinking. Gotta give it a good think. Peace out.

If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

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When not fighting with the refrigerator, we seem to like to Duke it out with our hyper active water softner system. The Petwa system has run full tilt for as long as we’ve lived in this house. It uses far too much salt, runs too much, and now it seems it has developed a blockage and likes to dump 10 or more litres of salty brine water onto my basement floor every other day. Much to my displeasure. Was about town today trying to locate an open & reputable repair service that I can get to come in and give it a once over. Might take a few days. Sounds like it’s a popular item to have develope a fault in it. Onwards we go. Now I need to call around to find out what a reasonable price is for service/repair or replacement. So far looks like $1,700 – $2,000 for install, taxes, and a new system. Gah.

Along came Polly, who whisked it all away.

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The rains, they came and kept us inside while the birds and the squirrels ransacked our stores of bird seed. I had intended for it to attract a wide swathe of colourful birds, but instead the lone grey and black squirrels found the stash first, and some Robins and Starlings cleaned us out quickly thereafter. No cardinals, no finches, budgies or much of anything else came to the supplied feast. Two morning doves made a brief appearance but it was a pretty drab affair. My monster sized black birds didn’t come down for the seeds either. They seem to prefer kitchen scraps from my compost pile. Can’t say I blame them, loading up on seeds seems like hard work.

Let us hope that the sun comes out today, and we get a break from the rain. I guess it almost being April means we’ve got to get used to the rains coming and keeping us all cooped up indoors where it is dry & warm. Hard to get May flowers without the requisite April showers. I know the average restaurant or bar is praying for a warm and sunny, mild April so that they can open their patios asap, and get the warm weather drinking started along with the arrival of baseball season. Opening games start as early as this week. 162 games is a long time. That’s a hefty season. I feel like too much can happen over a season that long. They could cut it into thirds and it would still be a tonne of games. Just make each one important, instead of the last 50 or so. That shortened strike/lock out year was awesome. Fewer games, and each one mattered. But I don’t need to fill an arena, or pay staff and a team of multimillionaires.

Lazy Sunday with a make up Gymnastics day today. Gotta recoup all the missed extra curriculars while we were bed ridden with Covid last week. My internals don’t feel quite right but I feel as though things could have been a lot worse, so I’ll make due, and will try not to over exert myself, or cause undue stress on my body for a few more weeks. Not looking to spontaneously pop my clogs any time soon for the sake of “normalcy”. Running and vigorous physical activity can take a back seat for a little while longer.

May take the kids to a movie today. I thought that Super Mario was out already, but not until April 5th. So we’ll check out Puss n’ boots or Mummies or something along those lines. But that’s this afternoon’s problem. This morning I need to focus on breakfast and gymnastics!

The tenacity of the testing line…

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Thought I had it licked yesterday, but the faintest of lines on the test strip says otherwise. So faint! So very very faint. Alas, still visible. Haven’t totally shaken it then. Thought that I had. Perhaps by end of day today! Or by late tomorrow? Who knows! Hard to tell. This is day twelve by the way. Feel far better in comparison to days 1-5! But an extremely wide margin. No less a margin! More a chasm. The gulf between how I feel now versus then could fit an A380 in it! With room to fly around. Woke up with centre chest ache today. Worrisome. Certainly. Could have been from moving all of those bags of water softener salt. I bought the larger! And this heavier ones yesterday! As our tank had gone dry. Carrying them! And lifting them to empty out into the tank was a bit of hard work yesterday. So i hope that is the cause of my discomfort! And not say, new Covid related lung issues.

So faint, but pinky is still visible in the light.

It is Saturday, and for some reason I awoke by 7:00am. I don’t hear either child running about. Not to say that they aren’t up running amok!, just that I can’t hear them from here. Did they decide to sleep in for a change? Doubtful. Highly doubtful. That’s not how these kids roll. Even when sick they refuse to get more than the absolute minimum their bodies need to function. I heard that freezing rain was possible today! So that should be fun. Gladly the sunshine this week did a lot to clear out the snow and ice around the property, so I think we’ll be ok with rain / freezing rain today.

I’m trying to figure out a way to maximize the space inside my garage. I kinda want to get rid of some superfluous tools! And break down some tables, and carts, to reclaim just the tiniest bit of open floor space. I might need to invest in a lone cabinet to move finishing supplies into, and most of my other consumables, so that I can pull apart some carts to regain wheels and plywood bits. I’m just not sold on the idea yet. What I want is an assembly space for glue ups that doesn’t crowd my bench or work area. But my garage is tiny and I don’t think I can achieve that even with the elimination of a couple carts and atleast one table, nor the removal of two tools. I will get more space, that’s a fact. I just don’t think it’ll be as much as I want/need for as much work or money and time it will cost me. I need to take some measurements, and think it through before I make any kind of a decision. Or I’ll get impatient, act impulsively, and will tear a bunch of stuff apart and will just have to learn to live with it. Easy-peasy.

Not much on the docket today, as far as work is concerned. Had a new logo request come in last night. Not certain I’ll take it though. We will see how the next week pans out and then I will make a decision about it. Have a lovely Saturday. Take care out there. Ciao Bella.