Since the 2003 HA gathering was big fun, I knew I had to organize another one.
So 14 Months later there was the second edition with a jolly bunch of plaster casters.
In preparation of this event I posted a topic on the HA board to find out if people where interested and within a week I got 12 serious replies.
The day before the grant event Axel and I setup the work area. Since it was hard to predict what would be done that day we just set up some tables and hoped for the best.
13th November, the doorbell woke me up. I guess it was my own fault telling all to be most welcome as early as 08:00 in the morning. Fortunately my wife and kids where downstairs to entertain the first guests so I could do my turbo "get dressed" act.
Along with the guests, some really nice projects where brought in as well as you can see in the next series of pictures. The 1 by 1 inch tiles made by Fred (Oneofmany) and his small keep as his work in progress. The small castle of Mario (Mlindert) who unfortunately could not bring his HADD5 winner. The small keep is made for a colleague so I guess this must be a real nice colleague indeed. Robert (Imahilus) who brought his small graveyard and Axel who brought a real nicely painted miniature of this 40K guy.
A great deal of casting went on this day. A nice clean work surface and a bunch of molds where waiting for things to come.
One of the things that did come was Peters vibrating table that he demonstrated with great success. Working with this gadget while mixing and poring plaster will produce absolute bubble free casts while some of the plaster did try to hit the ceiling every now and then. As Fred demonstrates his machine, Mario and Peter are watching with great interest.
And casting molds we did that day!
This big series of pictures give you a good impression of all the hard labour that was executed that day. Céline (my daughter) turned out to be a great help in mixing plaster and filling molds. Arnoud (one of the so called interested into and certainly not Hirst Arts addict) modestly started to do some castings and ended the day in a complete casting frenzy. Within 2 days I got a mail from him where he wrote that he made some small scenery pieces and was in a big urge of another truckload of bricks.
Sanderyn and Ester also worked extremely hard, trying to cast as many blocks as possible. They are planning on building Amon Sul. Since they need quite some cast for it they could have all my Amon Sul spare blocks so my son Bas helped them in sorting out these blocks. Having these addictive plaster girls in our midst was most pleasant and proofs again that this hobby is not only for us boys.
During these plaster hours we paused every now and then talking about miniature painting, designing blocks or just get a bit of fresh air in the garden. Imahilus was actually the only one that worked on one of his projects, a large bridge that will be made of gothic elements and a cracked floor tile pavement.
The casting king of the day must have been Peter who actually left with a crate of plaster casts. Still hours to go from this picture but this is what was in his box when I peeked in.
"Rik" brought lots of interesting stuff along like books of medieval architecture, some dentist tools he got from his dentist and lots of other hobby stuff. He also brought this set-up for his castle where he uses a combination of wooden parts along with the plaster building blocks.
Most of his hobby day was spend painting miniatures for his "under construction" castle. Also a good opportunity for my son to get into painting miniatures. Axel joined in Rik’s painting session and they spend a couple of hours painting together.
Another special event of this day was the making of molds. Mario was mostly interested in custom stuff as did Fred and Axel. The first step was making perfect castst of those items they wanted to use in their molds. Once this was sorted out the cheap tiles (used as surface to glue the blocks on) where getting a foam edge around it and the blocks where glued in next. With all molds prepared the casting could begin.
Spraying the molds with Üniversal mold release” first, using Mold Max 30, poring the silicone using a scale, poring the catalyst (ratio one to ten), stir it thoroughly and gently casting the silicone in a way that it finds its own way within the mold, raps up the process of mold making. In order to get this all done in a way that the molds would be ready to take home at the end of the day I used a mix of normal and fast catalyst.
As a host I am pleased when I see that all guests find their own way and do their own things. And it is nice when you see how we all share ideas or explain how to do things from painting to foam cutting, from casting to mold making, building with plaster and wood or recommend good historical books.
And above all laugh a lot even when your fleet is swept away from the pirates table by your ally that eventually does not seem to be one.
BR> The day was more or less concluded with this great Chinese takeaway bring along eat all you can dinner. A great day where my part was mostly hosting and running around came to an end. Looking back at this day I see lots of things we did not do what actually is not too bad because we might pick those things up next time.
Lots of fun and learned a lot on how to host a day like this. Next time I will do it a bit different so I can invite more people.
Special thanks to Axel for helping me out this day in preparing it, Fred, Peter and Robert for helping me to clean up the place and again thanks to Peter for making a lot of the pictures you see in this report.
Until next gathering.
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