Here we have them : The first horsemen for my Imagi-Nations project. And yes, of course the are covered with a thick glossy varnish. They are
Toy Soldiers, they have to. They don't pretend to be 'realistic'.
The mould flows quite well despite the undercuts. Since two legs of the horse are heavily stressed when removing the piece, I advise you to always let the mould cool down well. I also had to use extra clamps towards the bottom, otherwise the material would leak out. The rather large amount of metal puts a lot more pressure on the mould due to its weight compared to moulds for smaller figures.
I drilled air holes for the toes of the hussar. These run into a "dead end" and are often shorter than they should be.
In addition, a small air vent at the tip of the saber.
Large figures usually cannot do without assembly. And that's a bit of a
challenge here too. These are the pieces that come out of the mould.
Glue the horse together after deburring. Allow to harden for at least a
few hours - better overnight. Because we need the horse to be really
stable when mounting it on the base plate.
The holes in the base plate do not fit exactly to the millimeter.
Therefore, use a round file or a knife blade to enlarge the holes a
little bit in the direction of the center of the plate (direction of the
arrow, see photo) and file off the pins on the horse's hooves a little
bit in that direction. It's not much and then you can easily put the
horse on the plate.
Glue on the base plate and also let it harden. Then the protruding
tenons are clipped off with pliers and filed smoothly. Always practical:
the so-called "third hand" that holds the model here.
The rider has various right arms and only one left. The one on the left
indicates holding the reins and would be a bit in the way when painting
the braids on the man's chest. That's why we glue it on later. One of
the arms is well suited to make a flag bearer and I think I am going to
'steal' this piece for other figures.
To be honest: I could not really see where to attach the saber and saber
pouch. These moulds I got used so I did not have the information
sheet that is usually included with them. But apparently nothing is
planned for the saber, the whole ensemble is probably something very
universal. I glued the saber to the side and glued the pocket over it
for reinforcement.
Quite big bolids. From the bottom to the top around 9cm high and about
185 grams in weight. However, I cannot say which alloy I had cast it
with, I processed a lot of leftover material. Since I could not bend
the horses' legs in order to adapt them to the base plate, I assume that
the amount of tin is relatively high. Which, by the way, is very good,
because I've heard stories about 54mm horses that kneeled down on their own
after a while because the material was too soft. (Means : to much lead).