Saturday, May 18, 2013

Take it apart, there's bits inside!

  In the shot over there on the left is just a sample of the pile of bits I made by taking apart two old DVD players I had lying around. Quite the haul, I think, and all this was for about 15 minutes work.  This was 2 old DVD players that are now gone, not used, kaput!

  (As an aside, I bought the Blu-Ray for the bedroom so we could watch Blu-Ray movies in there, chiefly, the UltraMarines movie I just picked up on Blu-Ray.  Yes, I am that guy who thinks that movie doesn't suck all that bad.)

But anyhow, from just these two drives, let me take you through the pile.

- 6 good motors that can either be speed controlled via battery size, or a decent potentiometer.  Automate the turret on that Predator, I think maybe?  The motors are small enough to also be used for the turret on my StormRaven, who knows?

- Gears! Everything from scenery effects to using them for that Turret!  There are different gears in there, but the ones that have the attached belt and pulley are screaming to be added to my Generator scenery piece.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Review - Laser Cut Card 'Cyborg Monolith' - Awesome!

  I have had this card stock kit from Laser Cut Card for a while now, just have not had time to build it.  Boy am I sorry, this is great stuff.

  I had a Sunday night off (no mothers day here, we're monster-less :) so I looked for something to knock together.  There on my desk was my envelope from South Africa (where Laser Cut Card resides) and I decided to do it.

  It looked slightly intimidating at first, but reading through the steps on the instructions at the website made it look easier.  I have to say that Neal must have put a great deal of thought into his design, because it goes together without a hitch.  Super simple, easy to build and very forgiving of a guy with little manual dexterity and lacking modeling talent.

  The instructions on the website are clear and concise, but they lacked any information on painting.  That kinda sucked 'cuz I spent quite a while looking.  In the end I decided just to airbrush regular acrylic paint onto them.  It seems to have worked well, but we'll see if there is any warping as the paint sets overnight.  I am betting it won't, or I'm sure Neal would have warned users not to do it.

  Hint - If he says to do or not do something, he means it.  Tolerances are very tight and everything fits well if you 'do it his way'.  I won't bore you with tutorial steps on assembly, I'll just put in some pics showing where I deviated because of the paint job I wanted on mine.

  All in all, I give this kit a big A or 9.5 (I hate giving perfect scores, it tends to cheapen the scale, I think).  It went together, paint and all, in just a couple of hours.  A sharp knife and some super glue is all you really need for a great looking terrain piece / objective for your Necron game table.  Easy to build, fun to build and paint, what more can you ask for?

  I am now totally looking forward to building the 'cyborg defense line' for my next game, since I really haven't painted my Aegis defense line yet...

Pics Follow....