Tuesday, June 2, 2015

"Use Real Things for Real Things!" - Update on how to make pipes, tubes, wires, cables, etc....

Hi everyone,

Wanted to post an update on what we've found to be a better way to do things....

Few weeks back we were posting about using our little press (from Poland) to make wires, tubes and such out of epoxy putty.  (Here's a link to that blog post.)

And, we mentioned that when we chatted with Seth at Game Kastle about this -- mentioned that we wanted to add wires and hoses to our Ork Supreme Warboss (Spork) -- and also that we wanted to add bigger, more involved ones from the "engine" to the "Eldar unit" on our newest locomotive conversion "Da Pain Train"....

And, after being super patient and indulgent, Seth said "use real things to model real things."  :)

So, we've been working at that!  Here's our update.  Spoiler alert:  Of course, Seth was right.  PS:  Got very similar and excellent advice from friends on DakkaDakka.

1) Wires / cables.

Where to get little cables?  Well, around here, if you need old electronic stuff, you can buy recycled electronics at nice low prices:  Weird Stuff Warehouse!

So, we headed down there -- and got some small spools.  You can see the prices on them ($0.50 and $1.00 and $3.00).  The super small gauge wires were cheaper (30 AWG) the 18-20 AWG bigger stuff was a little bit more....

Here are some spools of wire - and a short length of multi-conductor wire we got at Weird Stuff!

Then, we brought out our trusty hand drill (some good advice from a different DakkaDakka set of questions and help from friends)....

Here is the little hand-drill set we got on Amazon

After a little bit of experimentation -- found that one of the small drill bits is JUST right for the 30 AWG wire.  Don't even need to strip the wire.  Slides in with insulation on!

For the larger wire, we used one of the middle-sized bits -- and there we did have to strip the wire to get it to fit into our drilled hole.

What we were going for on Spork was to run "power" from his backpack (which we had built up from some bits) to a) his leg; b) his head; and c) his POWER SPORKA....  So, we used little wires for his head and his leg.  And, then we used the bigger wire for the POWER SPORKA.

After cutting the wires -- we primed them.  (Ended up with lots of paint on our fingers.)  Then a little bit of painting and super glued them into place.

Here is how Spork is shaping up these days.  Going to add some spikey bitz to that front pink part of the POWER SPORKA.  Had put the chains and skull there.  But, when we decided to change his pose to "OVER DA HEAD" had to move those.

We were also really eager to find a way to do pipes and tubes (so that we could run LIKWIDZ and GASSEEZ between the engine and the looted Eldar flying on Da Pain Train)....

So, we found that on HobbyLink we could order miniature PVC tubing, rods -- even I-beams!

Weren't very expensive -- and just arrived....  They are going to work out well.  But, as you can see we've got a little bit of work to do to get 'little tubes' which fit nicely inside 'bigger tubes' -- to resemble tubes, fittings, unions and the like as you'd find in real plumbing systems.

The tubes, rodes and I-beams we got on HobbyLink

So, now (in addition to finishing up Spork) we're ready to start work on Da Pain Train :)





Da Pain Train - Gotz rodz and pipez.  'Ere We Go!

And, with the plastic I-beams we got -- what'll we work on?  Well -- mostly likely a gantry for the Grot Rokkit so that we can use it with the Ork Pulsa Rokkit rules in the up-coming campaign!


As for the little press -- it's still going to see action.  As we see it now -- it's still great for making tubes of different sizes -- particularly when we need them to bend very tight corners.  So, planning to use it on Da Pain Train to make 90-degree elbow piping pieces  :)

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