Home casting figures – functional repairs and old toy soldier DNA

Useful tools of the repair trade – pin vice and file – to repair a miscast musket.

Miscastings or half castings that are not too bad do not always go straight back in the ladle.

To avoid fumes and mess, I restrict my casting to days outside in warmer weather with no threat of rain; hot metal and moisture make an explosive mix.

As a result casting days (or days when I have time and feel like casting) are infrequent enough that I save the 90+ % figures that are ‘nearly all there’. I can then do some simple repairs on missing musket tips and other fiddly bits. Even missing heads can be swapped …

“Where’s your head at?” Missing a head, why not try swopping one with a Pound Store figure?

Such repairs that I make are usually fairly simple ones, such as drilling out a miscast musket to insert a short piece of wire.

Second casting session a few days ago – a few missing musket tips, heads and bows to repair.

On the repair tray where missing musket tips are replaced, heads swapped and bows repaired …

The perfect casting, the half cast musket and a masking tape, wire and glue repair.

Old Toy Soldier DNA

You might notice from photos that I often drill, file and repair over sheets of white A4 paper, which I have folded into four and unfolded again to make a cross shaped crease.

This is because I keep the metal filings, drilling ‘swarf’ and trimmings from old Hollowcast figure repair, roughing up the base when rebasing or cleaning up home castings.

From time to time during repairs, I carefully slightly fold the crease-crossed A4 page and slide the metal filings and trimmings into a small lidded pot.

Why do I keep this toy soldier ‘magic dust’ mixed together in a small pot of this “old toy soldier DNA“?

It not only keeps the workbench of my roll-top desk clean but it also means that I can then add a minute pinch of this unique and special mixture from time to time to the casting ladle when home casting.

Each new shiny casting might then have inside it a tiny nano-percentage of an old Britain’s hollowcast casting or old flat tin figure.

Each shiny new casting then might have a small part of all the accumulated bravery, courage and adventure from the countless battles that the old damaged hollowcast veterans (from various makers and owners) have been through over the last hundred years or more.

Reinforcements for Tradgardland, Lurland or Afrika?

A small number of these unpainted Schneider castings of pith helmeted Colonial figures and fierce Natives will soon be heading towards Alan Gruber at the Duchy of Tradgardland blog as reinforcements for his interesting Lurland and Ost Afrika campaigns.

http://tradgardland.blogspot.com/search/label/Afrika

http://tradgardland.blogspot.com/search/label/Lurland

Alan has sent me some interesting spare figures and heads to keep me busy throughout Lockdown, so this is a small thin flat thank you heading to the Duchy of Tradgardland Post Office.

Fight well my tiny men, you have the brave DNA of old toy soldiers in you!

Previously on Man of TIN …

Here is one of the first blog posts that I wrote back in 2016 “type casting”. My WordPress avatar / host page @26soldiersoftin is still named after these famous “26 soldiers of Lead” of Gutenberg (or whoever first said this quote).

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/typecasting/

We finish with a fine picture of a dapper, almost Duke of Edinburgh looking Donald Featherstone, casting away on the kitchen stove in his cheerily enthusiastic 1960s book Tackle Model Soldiers This Way.

“In the author’s house, everyone slaves over a hot stove”. Note the plate drying rack and safety equipment of a shirt and tie. An inspiration to us all!

Inspired?

If you want to have a go at casting, these companies sell new moulds and casting equipment:

Prince August (Ireland / UK/ EU) do some great starter sets at their website

https://shop.princeaugust.ie

or their official eBay shop mouldsandminis https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/mouldsandminiatures?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

Berlinner Zinnfiguren (Germany / EU) https://www.zinnfigur.com/en/Casting/

In America, Rich at Dunken has now acquired several old manufacturers’ collections of moulds https://www.dunken.com

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 17/18 April 2021.

April – First Casting sessions 2021

Today’s Castings ready for trimming and filing …

Today’s casting session outdoors in the garden sunshine worked much better than one last week late afternoon with a chill in the wind.

These are mostly 45mm – 50mm Flats from old metal Schneider moulds.

The metal Schneider type home casting moulds do not work so well or the metal run so well if they lose too much heat between each cast.

Last week’s casting session – colder weather – and some scenics

I am keeping some of the miscast ones to see if I can repair muskets or rifles and swap missing heads with …

Pound Store Plastic figures.

Schneider mould 69 – colonials and highlander

Schneider mould 56 – settler and natives

Schneider mould 70 – charging colonial officer and bayoneting soldier

Schneider mould 80 – peaked cap kneeling and standing firing

Mixed in amongst last week’s castings you can see some flat scenics, which did not cast fully – low brick or stone wall, wall and hedge section – and a successful churn. Five bar gates are as tricky as cannon wheels!

I was also testing out an old silicon home cast / home made moulds that I bought a while ago for a Britain’s American infantryman in 54mm. The 50mm little Indian infantryman is an attractive figure, again randomly acquired.

Now for a trim and tidy up …

Meanwhile back at the Flat 2D ranch …

Alan Duchy of Tradgardland blog has been doing some unusual small Flats skirmishes of late such as these:

https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2021/04/lurland-skirmish.html

https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2021/03/forgotten-sons-of-semi-flat-homecast.html

https://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2021/03/afrika-palms-and-portuguese.html

Spot the same Schneider figures I cast this afternoon! Reinforcements?

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 14 April 2021

Homecast Schneider moulds Redcoats

Crossposted on my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2020/06/02/home-cast-british-army-figures-schneider-moulds/

More Homecasting

Getting back into casting my own figures in metal, rather than Fimo / Sculpey Polymer Clay, after a break of several years is proving interesting.

It hasn’t all gone to plan. Moulds, especially metal vintage ones not used for a while, need to be “run in”. Warming the moulds gently helps the metal flow too.

Moulding disasters get put straight back into the melting pot or melting spoon.

Schneider Settlers and Indians – Back into the melting spoon together …

Rough, but useable 54mm castings from old metal moulds in need of a bit of trimming and filing. Faces are a bit blank. 

An attractive WW1 / early WW2 British infantryman marching, c. 54mm height

 

Rough raw castings of Prince August 40mm Cowboys and Indians designed by Holger Erikkson

Lovely to know that these ‘HE’ or Holger Ericksson figures (cast from moulds sold by Prince August) are still popular many years after they were first carved by Holger Ericsson (1899-1988) as shown here http://www.tabletoptalk.com/?p=572

Schneider type moulds for 30 to 40mm flat 19th century British infantry.

Straight out of the mould, clipped but not filed yet – 40mm PA5 modern 1950s infantry marching (Holger Eriksson / Prince August moulds).

Lots of filing and trimming awaits … and lots of imagi-nations skirmish game ideas.

Casting using the vintage metal casting moulds is definitely trickier than the silicone rubber moulds, but a few tricks picked up from the toy soldier forums  such as warming the moulds first does help with the metal flow.

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN blog, January 2017

Home cast antique and gilt paint finishes

A very long time ago as a child I was bought a jumble job lot  of toy soldiers, mostly plastic but amongst them was this trio of metal soldiers.

I painted their hats, coats and boots but never finished them. I had no idea what they were, who made them or what to do with them as they were 40mm tall, bigger or smaller than my other figures. So no real use or match. On their base I could just make out the letters HE which meant nothing to me at the time.

Fast forward to ten years ago: poking around a craft shop on a trip to Cornwall, I discovered a tiny cache of Prince August moulds for making traditional toy soldiers which I bought straight away.

I had seen as a child intriguing adverts for this company in modelling magazines but the dangers of hot metal and shortage of pocket money as a child  meant that I never bought any.

Looking through the Prince August  online catalogue, I recognised these strange random trio of figures, their designer’s name HE (Holgar Eriksonn) and sent off for some PA moulds to find out at long last how they worked. And to give this three man patrol  some company  to pick on of their own size.

http://shop.princeaugust.ie/h-e-40mm-scale-military-moulds/

I found these figures are Prince August PA17 Musketeer, PA23 Musketeer standing and PA24 kneeling.

Playing around with paint finishes

There are many possible finishes for these shiny Prince August castings.

One suggestion is pewtering, an idea from their cast your own chess sets ‘antique finish’. Black acrylic paint is painted over the figures, then fairly quickly wiped off with a cloth or kitchen roll before fully dry.

Another alternative is the simple gilt or gold paint finish.

I tried out the gilt finish on another home casting, an American sailor drumming,  from a metal mould of a different much older (American?) manufacturer.

The older type of metal home cast moulds (usually German or American origin) have much more flash and casting lines, requiring more time and filing to clean up than a modern rubber Prince August mould.

Another gilt finish home cast Schneider mould figure in my collection with mould half.

 

This is a 1910-20s gilt finish early British lead toy soldier in my collection (Photo / Figure: Man of TIN)

Sometimes I find stray home cast  figures in junk shops and online lots that are quite crude, often overpriced such as this cowboy type figure from another metal mould (in this cast in quite soft and bendy lead).

They have a simple charm and many conversion or paint possibilities.

I have now tracked down a three figure (Schneider?) mould No. 56 of this cowboy and two Indian figures to produce more. At some point worth casting enough for a Close Little Wars home cast skirmish of settlers versus natives maybe?

Plastic Postscript 

This “fake pewter” or “antiquing”  technique can also be tried with some success on silver plastic figures from pound stores.

Compared to the original plastic figure:

Posted by Mr MIN, Man of TIN, June 2016.