Whilst boiling some eggs for a egg mayo yesterday I was wondering if the egg box could be converted into some kind of dark age great house, or possibly flocked, would it do for a motte. I also mused that the egg shells could probably be crushed enough to be used for gravel for basing. When I poked to mayo to see if it could be used as an emergency PVC glue substitute, I realised I had a problem.

Is it just me? What are your favourite unusual modelling materials?   

 

Quote from: fsn on 04 June 2013, 06:01:19 PM
Is it just me? What are your favourite unusual modelling materials?   

I don't know what is was actually called....But there was a weird 'putty' that one of my old colleagues found.
He sent a generous sized sample and I had a go with it.
To all intents and purposes it mixed and set like milliput....

The only time I used it "in anger" for a model was for a tall 'mech type' model, which was around 60 (?) mm tall...
It was basically 'an egg on legs'...With the 'cabin' of the model being egg shaped....and the size of a small chicken egg.

Having used a fairly basic lathe and a LOT of different grades of sand/glass paper, I got a very acceptable shape for the egg...slapped on a few bits of green stuff for detail..finished the model off and shipped it over to the States.
A couple of weeks later, I got the 'egg' back with a request to cut it 'in half' and hollow it out to save on metal weight for the model.

That's when the problems started !!

I tried using a piercing/jeweler's saw, with a reasonably coarse blade and found I was making very, very little impression on the putty.
The strangest thing was....That although the putty was a pale beige in colour....The dust that was coming out was a dark grey.
I snapped three blades before I realized that the dust was, in fact, coming from the saw blade and not the putty.
The putty was basically grinding the teeth away.....It was going through the saw blade, rather than the other way round.

I ended up having to use a hacksaw......and taking the teeth off four more new blades before I finally got through the wretched thing.
Reaming it out was even more fun.....and I destroyed/completely blunted four very large burrs before I decided that those particular steel ones just couldn't cope with the hardness of the putty.
I ended up with some tungsten carbide burrs from the States before I completed 'the mission' to hollow out 'the egg'.

What was the name of this putty ?.....I still don't know....But I found out WAY too late that it was, in fact, a ceramic putty....and the hardest/strongest putty that I've ever attempted to use.

Needless to say, the rest of it went in the bin.

I DO like experimenting with different putties.....But not all of the experiments work out well ! 
Cheers - Phil.

Oh dear, too many and too weird to list them all, probably best find is using cats whiskers....great AFV aerials

Cheers,

Craig

Cats' whiskers.....Yes....I too have actually used those...but on a base to represent 'rushes'.
Thanks for reminding me Craig.
Forgetting things ?.....It's an age thing, you know !
Cheers - Phil.

Quote from: TinyTerrain on 05 June 2013, 10:50:53 AM
Oh dear, too many and too weird to list them all, probably best find is using cats whiskers....great AFV aerials

 

Can't beat the oldies but goodies!

Unless you're using updated technology.

I did once use granulated sugar as texturing on some 10mm bases. Surprisingly enough they're still intact after fifteen years. Just don't dip your figures in your tea!

Mustard seeds, roll up cigarette filters (and papers), cat biscuits to name but a few, I'll use anything that has potential (and being free helps too!!)