Many Mithril Pages @ Faerylands

mithril.faerylands.eu is up and operational... please pass the word around you...

the forum MMP has not been migrated , it will be during next week -  and mithril.faerylands.eu still works for a couple of days...

Sorry about that, but I know you aren't a hasty chap so I didn't think you'd mind. It will give you time to mull over the changing seasons or the colour of the sky (I'll leave the curtains apart) or whatever it is that trees think about.

Oh, and I finally got my Dol Amroth chaps yesterday. These are very much up to the standard I was expecting, and reminded me again of something we haven't commented on for a while - the precision with which multi-part Mithril figures fit together. It always makes me wonder why other manufacturers invariably have such difficulty achieving this.

hsf62 wrote:

Barliman wrote:

It always makes me wonder why other manufacturers invariably have such difficulty achieving this.

That is very easy Master Barliman.... because they are not Mithrils!

Yes, hsf62 is absolutely right, this indeed must be the one and only answer.

Maybe it is, because Mithril has more "old-fashioned" production methods, while other companies do mass-producing. So we as customers always have to answer ourselves, what we want: high price products + high quality or low quality + higher price products.

NAMARIE
estel

AND: a lovely Christmas to all visitors in this bar (except those Orc-scum from outside, writing bad things onto Barlis beloved walls !!) !

You also could cast Mithrils in this alloy without any lead and they still would fit together, because there are two very important people working on this fit. One is Chris who gives these little guys the special flair and makes sure they fit together and the other one is the mouldmaker who fits these guys into the mould to ensure no detail is lost.
If these two people work the way they do here with our beloved Mithril, the parts fit together.
Others don't go into that much detail and then it is not a surprise the parts don't fit together.
The metal is not really the importantpart.

So I may have some information here...
First the mouldmaker at Mithril is Dan Joe... Then the alloy

This info can be found on PrinceAugust site ... Though there is indeed lead in the alloy, the details and sharpness are due to the proportions used by the other metals used in this special, exclusive, PA alloy "Model Metal" or their 5Star Metal (without lead)
there is Tin (to replace lead mostly), Bismuth and Antimony ( one is to lower the fusion point, the other is for fluidity and thus capacity of detail) I am no expert and master hsf62 will certainly have more info than me, but I tried myself at casting ... once, with the Warforge elves army and I bought several ingots of this casting metal.. It is awesome how it is easy to cast and all the details it keeps.

In the end the conclusion would be to quote Prince August expertise in castings... with great talent sculptors... it is not especially Mithril... Now if you look at Pegaso Models or Andrea Miniatures you can reach such a level of details but ONLY on the 54mm figurines, andrea 32mm is far less goodlooking than Mithril (but I suspect it is only due to the sculptor, not the caster)

their native design make them look flat (and actually their helmet too.... I don't like their helmet) but it also depends if you press the two parts too strongly maybe?
in the end most of mine look cool and rather mithril like but you can't expect a level of detail and flawless casting from a "public" mould and series.... they are not as smooth as the mithril ones but in an army involving both mithril and warforge they would be excellent (in dioramas etc)... the painting would help a lot.... the base though is not rectangular but oval.... but well, in dioramas you usually remove the base...

I lshall ook forward to seeing them. Maybe they'll inspire me to (try to find the time to) cast up some myself. I've never in my life done any casting thus far, so it will be ... er, interesting.

MAE GOVANNEN, my friends,

some "secrets" from my tome of wisdome and metal casting lore I collected after hundreds of experiences. I hope it helps the not so experienced casters:
- The mould needs some temperature to get perfect castings, cold molds are worse than warm/hot ones.
- the metal is quite important, for custom casting, a variant with more lead in it seems fine, the very best metal was always the original Prince August metal (I don't know why, but the chemical mix must be the perfect one).
- some moulds work better than others, maybe because of the better airvents?
- it seems important to "dust" the mould inside, but not to heavily with Talcum powder

Still als Gavin said, sometimes you cast like Saruman's smitheries and only get 2 perfect figures out of 10 castings (or even more), maybe something magical or because of the weather, I don't know.

There will always been more tipps and hints and some say, the hints above are nonsense as everyone has his own experience


NAMARIE
estel

No sir, I would do no such thing.

Anyway, one day soon I have a PLAN. I shall cast about twenty or so wood elves. I shall then behead them. The heads will be used for a few conversion projects. The bodies will be melted down and recast as needed. The GW plastic wood elves, for example, have badly miscast faces, so I figure The Twins would not object to slightly better faces on their work So if I end up with a bit of extra time during this, I'll cast you a few and mail them to you.

I'll shoot you a message sometime over Christmas and tell you how I'm getting on.

Gavin

I am going to experiment. The wood elf heads are oddly big, and sort of mush into the figure's shoulders a lot. A quick eyeball comparison looks like it might work.

I will upload pics of the results.

I'm sure I heard something. It can't have been the tree, so it must have been the wargskin rugs.

Has anyone ever pointed out before that you sound just like a wargskin rug? I think I've been selling you too many of my meat pies (and before anyone complains, I never claimed that it was beef; that was just a rumour put about by my bar-snacks menu).

time to stop the pony
back in half an hour if everything works well