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Tag: urn

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!

The Partial Urn Building Episode: Vol 1.

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It started with a quick trip to pick up some pre-cut bits of Red Oak wood, hopefully eight (8″) inches in width, a quarter inch thick and around four feet long. Couldn’t find any, so I bought additional five and a half inch (5.5″) boards so I could join them to get the height I was after. I chose the straightest boards I could find after digging through a pile of about twenty or so pieces. I then grabbed a two inch wide, by three quarter inch thick piece to become the trim for my plywood core base. And then I also grabbed some two inch by quarter inch, by four foot strips that will eventually become a tray that sits inside the top of the urn’s central column.

So first off, I rounded over one edge of my two inch wide by three quarter Red Oak strip. Then I cut it down the middle to be one inch wide. Two inches, after further reflection was just too much. Too over powering. Too chunky. Then I flipped that strip rounded edge up against the fence of my table saw and cut out a quarter inch channel for the plywood core to Nestle into. I then spent a considerable about of time measuring and cutting and sneaking up on the mitred corners for my base. I got three that were perfect and one that was off. Seems as though, when I cut the two inch strip down to one inch I released a bunch of tension in the board and it went catywompus on me right from the get go. Not enough to be visible, but enough that with matching lengths and cuts, one corner was out by nearly an eighth of an inch. Very frustrating. Once I had this cut and roughed together I was able to cut down the plywood core that will be ensconced within the red oak chunky trim pieces. After gluing it up, and then spot patching the one sides gap (I managed to get it down below a 16th, but just barely. I was able to sand it, and clean it up to look as though I know what I’m doing.

The Red Oak Urn, loosely held together with clamps so I can measure & fit what’s in front of me, and not what I had on the plans I mocked up.

With the base glued up, I can begin to cut down one of my 5.5″ boards and do a couple glue ups to get my eight linear feet of 8.25″ wide boards for the inner column of the Urn. After the glue up, I extracted them from the assembly table, and the myriad sets of clamps I had used. I used a paint scraper, and then a card scraper to clean off the surface, and then tackled what was left of a visible glue seam with some higher grit sand papers to make it mostly disappear. Next, using the hard measurements from my newly constructed base I began to cut down the outer walls of the urn. At this juncture I decided against more mitred, and went for butt joints. Simple, yes, but effective. I had, at this point, decided that I wanted two layers of wall for the column. The exterior being the full 8.25″h, and the interior two inches shorter, all the way around, so that my tray, once built, would have a partial shelf to sit on, and thus, not potentially fall all the way through into the ashes below. You know, because it’s an urn.

Next steps are the glue up the outer, and inner walls of the central column, pin them in place discretely, but not fully attach it to the base just yet, so that I can sand more unencumbered. Then I can build the tray itself, which will get lined in a 2mm thick felt (Green, Yellow, Burgundy or Blue), i haven’t decided yet. The red oak will dictate what looks best at this point. And once all that is done i can build the decorative outer display cap. This i want to sand and polish up to a very high sheen. It will require hours of sanding, up to about 600 or 800 grit. Then the use of my polisher and wood polish to get that majestic final finished look to it.

The weather is cold and miserable once more, it is February in southern Ontario, so no surprise there. This is the middle of winter, and we’re having the strangest winter I can ever recall. So it might need to wait a bit until I can go back to do more. I have it all documented, and labeled, so I can go back at any time and not be lost. I have no heat, nor moisture control in the garage shop, so let us hope it doesn’t all go ape shit if left for a week. Fingers crossed.

Some of you may know that I had intended to build this out of Walnut, Ash or Spalted Maple which I had lying around the shop. After a good think about how long it would take to mill all of that up into useable lumber pieces, and given the (potential) time constraints of the Urns requester, I felt starting from wood that was already 4s was a smarter choice. My planer, and bandsaw hate to work in the freezing cold. And they make a nasty racket too at the best of times. Oh well. Now I can make one for me with my own materials later on, and it won’t cost me much beyond my time.

Second wood working job of 2023.

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I have been asked to build a Wooden Urn in three pieces. A base, a nested low profile tray, and a highly polished outer cover, that shows off some of the base. The base will have rubber feet. The tray will be lined in felt. The whole outer shell polished to a high sheen, and clear coated. It’s for an extended family member. At least they get to choose the specifications and fit n’ finish. Perhaps have it in their ownership for a while before they need to use it. I’m hoping this isn’t a race against the clock type of thing. There may be a question of stains, and wood type, but I think Spalted Maple or Ash would be classic looking, and stain nicely. Plus I have lots of it, and won’t need to charge through the nose for acquiring it either.

Some decisions to make before I begin: use the wood I have on hand (Spalted Maple or Ash) or purchase a darker hard wood (added cost) what colour felt to line the low profile tray: Burgundy, Yellow, Blue or Green. Any possible stain colour for the base portion, unless we go bare wood and a clear coat finish. Any additional details to include or forgo.

Some brief time spent doing research has led me to build something along the lines of the below. Classy without being obnoxious or ostentatious.

The three portions of the build. Outer cover, urn and low profile tray.
Where I realize the base is meant to show, and I need to order rubber feet.

The first project, is a moose fence topper I’m making for my mum. I have it all cut out, but I need to sand & paint it. Then ship it out to Campbell River in pieces. I’ve been really busy as of late with my day job, and the winter temperatures makes working in the shop less than ideal, but the Urn is a big deal, so I may just brave it. Plus we are getting ever closer to the February thaw, and I would like to spend some time in the shop again. Not certain what this will do to my VF-1 Valkyrie time line, but that can wait. This is a matter of death after all.