Tuesday, May 9, 2023

General Update

This past week has seen me get back to hobby business.  I finally finished the painting of my 6mm WWII Soviet infantry stands, over 400 of them, as I decided to build infantry four different Brigade TO&Es.  With these I can piece just about any variations that I might need and will be able to play some pretty big battles should they materialize in my Barbarossa campaign.  Here's a pic of the figs (mostly) awaiting flock:


With the Soviet infantry off most of my paint and build surfaces, I was able to get back to building some stuff.  In this case a few additional pieces of modular 28mm cliff terrain.  It will be a small batch, with about half a dozen new cliff tiles with paths allowing figs to navigate the elevations more readily, and some more rocks and rocky formations to scatter around.  I'm still gluing up and rough shaping foam, but here is a WIP from Sunday morning:


Also, I discovered that 3M Styrofoam Spray Adhesive (item no. 6070) was no longer available from any of the my usual sources, and confirmed with Scotch/3M that the product is no longer in production. 

Having used up my stash of spray adhesive, I purchased a can of 3M Super 77 Spray Adhesive which was reformulated in the 1990s such that it would attack XPS foam insulation board, and it appears to have been reformulated again, as it does not as aggressively attack the foam.

I found that with a light application, I can avoid any noticeable damage to the foam, and that after  a few minutes, I had no separation of layers while cutting, sawing, rasping, and sanding it.  I tried pulling layers apart after 24 hours with no separation.

For the last 36 years, I've used spray adhesive, rather than liquid or paste type glues for gluing up foam terrain, as the turn around time for the process with spray is seconds to minutes v. hours to days of drying time.  If done properly, the spray adhesive lasts for decades, as I have terrain assembled with spray adhesive in 1989 with no signs of delamination.  

I intend to buy and test several different brands and types of spray adhesive in the coming days and will post on my experience with these.

My goal regarding the new terrain is to have the new it ready for a game this coming weekend.  Given that last night, I was only able to partially shape on tile, that goal may be more of a reach, than I anticipated.

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