Dennis Chang wrote:

"I'm not sure if ANY complaints or disappointment has anything to do with the fact that it comes as a prepaint vs a kit. I had thought it came as both?"

There are several reasons why the ‘Ruby Ford’ diorama is not suited to being sold as a finished piece or shipped once assembled.

Assembly: the overall figure design and placement of joints was for ease of casting and to limit the effects of mold distortion, that is to say, to make the figures in the minimum number of parts consistent with a good looking, easy to cast figure, rather than for assembled strength, ease of soldering or disguising solder joins. The whole design from start to finish was created without taking factory assembly into account because I was told Testors were making larger resin figures for the gift market and the 54mm figures would be sold as kits.

Shipping: aside from the inherent delicacy of the extremities, the fairly heavy figures have only two points of contact with the very large heavy base, a grievous flaw as this makes the ankles the point of stress when the object is dropped unless it is packed so that it absolutely can not move in any direction, problematical given the complex shape of the object. In other words if the box the figure is in is dropped, even if the figure does not contact the side of the box and have something break off or get dinged, the side of the figure which is closest to the point of impact of the box will stop but the rest of the figure will spend it’s momentum by stressing the figure, if this stress point is the ankles or some other weak point, they will bend. The only certain way to avoid this is to pack the figure so that it can not move at all, as with small foam beads. I suggested this to Testors but they didn’t want to because it makes a mess when you open the box.

Here are some pictures of the French Grenadier caricature I showed the head of earlier, it’s 1/35, about two inches (50mm) tall to the top of it’s head.

This entry was posted by Tom Meier on Sunday, January 14. 2007 at 09:41. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own blog.

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  1. Mike Good says:
    #1 2007-01-17 17:22 (Reply)

    Hello Tom,

    I am a fellow sculptor and admirer. Like you, I do this full time as a career. Your travails with Testor, though no doubt annoying to yourself, are somewhat amusing to me, having been a former employee. In fact, Testor was the last "real" job I had before becoming a full-time sculptor.

    Anyway, I have a client that is looking for somebody to fill in my shoes for a time. At the risk of crapping in my own nest, I am contacting you to see if you might be interested in taking on some of this work. I believe that what goes around comes around, so have no real qualms about this.

    Are you interested? The client is reliable and pleasant to work with, if the work can sometimes be mundane. Your experience will surely be less frustrating than with Testor. You can contact me at the email above. I would like to talk to you about this on the phone if possible, so leave a phone number if you like, or I will give you mine in a following email.

    Cheers!!

    Mike Good

  2. Chris Oulton says:
    #2 2007-01-18 08:31 (Reply)

    I was wondering why you sculpt a pupil. Is it to help define the character?

  3. Tom says:
    #3 2007-01-19 08:11 (Reply)

    Well I obviously don’t always, sometimes it depends on what the client wants, in other cases, like the Nativity set, I do it because many of the figures are going to sold as finished metal and it makes the figures look more lifelike and expressive.

  4. Christopher Oulton says:
    #3.1 2007-01-22 10:07 (Reply)

    I see. I always thought the expression on greek statues was eerie for the lack of a pupil. Any tips on making sculpting tools for texture?

  5. Tom says:
    #4 2007-01-22 12:54 (Reply)

    What do you mean by tools for texture? The only special tools I have are punches for making circles. I use two tools I made myself for almost everything I do. Perhaps I'll include pictures of them in my next blog entry.

  6. mlavanish says:
    #5 2007-01-31 21:36 (Reply)

    You mention soldering of figures, and I've always wondered how this was done with pewter figurines. If you don't mind, would you care to enlighten me? I have run into many many situations where having such a skill would save me a lot of heartache pinning and glueing joints.

    Thanks!

  7. Anonymous says:
    #5.1 2007-02-01 07:31 (Reply)

    The most important thing is to get the right kind of low melt solder for pewter. It’s usually sold as a paste you smear in the joint.

    One method is to use a box of some sort of inert material, like sand or glass beads to hold the parts in place and heat the joint with a micro torch until the solder flows. Another is to use a resistance soldering apparatus. This causes electric current to flow through the joint, which, being the point of highest resistance, gets hot and melts the solder paste.

    Both methods call for some fairly advanced technique.

  8. g says:
    #6 2009-09-23 05:58 (Reply)

    how much do you charge?


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