Tools and bases

This week I just had to finish off Death Dealer's base which I kept quite low key.  Lots of dark browns to make the figure the focus.  Now that Death Dealer is done I took the rest of the week off to have a break from painting and to some adjacent tasks.

Looks like a sound plan...

First off I decided to make myself a razor blade guillotine chopper.  I had seen these on the web (mainly on model railway sites) where they are used to accurately cut styrene rods.  Basically a straight edge with a razor blade cutter at 90 degrees to the straight edge.  There are normally some screw clamps on the straight edge to clamp down angle shapes (think the plastic triangles that come with protractor sets) so that mitre and angle cuts can be done.

The clamps in the "out of the way" position, they rotate 180 degrees to clamp down

Making a basic version I used a piece of 9mm ply for the base.  I purchased (the only bought item for the entire project) a ruler from the hardware store that I chopped down for size.  I could have just used a piece of aluminum bar but liked the option of having measurements visible on the straight edge.  The angle bracket for the handle was from the scrap box which was cut down to size.  Two 5mm bolts attach the bracket to the board and a single 5mm bolt is the pivot point for the chopper arm.  All the bolts are secured using nylon lock nuts.  The three clamp screw holes were old motherboard mounting screws that have a screw on one side and a hex nut on the other.  The clamps themselves were cut out from some metal scrap.  The chopping handle was a piece of right angle aluminum (12x12x1.4mm).  In the handle two 3mm holes were drilled so that the razor blade (just a normal razor) could be mounted.

Just add a finger.

Any cut metal edges were first painted in metal primer and then satin black enamel paint to stop any rust from forming.  The ply board was coated with 2 layers of estapol satin varnish to protect it from moisture and stains.

Do I really need one?  Do I plan to start scratch building obscure models?  No.  But sometimes it’s nice to spend a day in the shed using tools to make new tools.  Unfortunately due to the razor it has to live in the shed so the little people of the house don’t accidentally remove their fingers.  I’ve already taken the skin of one knuckle with an accident bump against the razor.

Death Dealer base

Second task was making a base for Death Dealer.  I started with a piece of 18mm pine that I cut to size and then routed around the top to give a rounded edge and smaller flat top.  The pine was then stained (Traditional Cedar) and then 4 coats of Jo Sonja's satin varnish were applied to seal it up.  Like all my bases a piece of dark green felt was glued to the bottom.  The top of the base doesn’t have any varnish (hence the discolouring) so that the glue will have a better chance of bonding.  I will drill in some pins to the base of the figure as I don’t want to rely on just the glue holding on.  The figure with horse is quite heavy.  So next week should be photos of everything together :).