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Fish scales pt 3

6/20/2018

So this week I go take the Comptia A+ exam, so not much is happening until after that is done.

I did try to assemble my scale maille, but there was too much of a curve so I had to cut them further. I haven't had time to try to assemble again, and I won't until after the exam on Friday.

I am also making rings as I have time. When I need a break from studying I will make 20 or so more rings. I have to get back to studying so I am going to just do a photo dump and come back later to explain.

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Fish Scales, pt 2

6/13/2018

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So...update on the scales.

Do you know how long it takes to cut and melt a hole in 400 spoons? Apparently 10 fricken hours. I sat at a table outside from 1pm until 11pm. Fricken hell that was painful. My joints are still feeling it.

I decided to change the design of the scales a little bit. I was having issues getting the lacing down, so I decided to do them scale maille style instead. That involves one giant hole in the middle instead of several small holes.

Image borrowed from Khelgar HERE

Looks simple, right? Not as simple as I thought.

So I did look into how much it would cost to buy metal scales, just to see. SO for 800 spoons I paid $12. For 1 giant spool of wire I spent $7. For metal snips to cut rings I paid $5. So total, assuming I only need 800 scales, it has cost me $24. Plus the time I put in.

Metal scales all have a pointed tip, and I need them rounded to look like fish scales instead of dragon scales. So the cheapest I found them, pointed not rounded, are $7 for 100. So scales alone, with no rings and not exactly what I want, would be $56. If I wanted to get them rounded I could, but that would be considered custom, so I would be looking at $5 for 10. Yeah, that is completely out of price range. Not even doing the math n that one.

And then rings. Rings are mainly 7mm. After playing around I learned I need 12mm rings. I could not find 12mm rings anywhere. In fact, it was difficult most places to determine the size of the ring sold. They tell you the guage of wire, but not the size of the actual ring. That is extremely frustrating. It might be ok if I were to pay for prefabbed metal scales, but as I can't afford that, I get to make my own rings as well. Fortunately that is not that difficult.

So...as I said, last Friday I spent all fricken afternoon and evening cutting spoons. And I only got halfway through all I needed. I still have 400 left to cut.

That thing I am using to cut the spoons is a woodburning tool with an exacto knife tip screwed in. It worked really well. That part went really quickly, actually. Once I figured out to use a template and draw the lines with a Sharpie it went pretty fast.

The part that was tedious was the hole. I swapped out the knife tip for a punch tip. The punch tip was way too small, so I also used the large end to melt the hole. The biggest issue was the melted material. When I was cutting, I was removing unmelted material. That was easy. When punching the holes, I had a ton of melted material. And it just didn't easily scrape off the tool. I had to sit and wait for it to drip off it. And if I didn't wait long enough, it would deposit the excess plastic onto the next spoon. It was so fricken difficult. I did not get any pictures of that part of the process.

But the next phase was to prime them. A while back I was gifted an air brush unit. One of the small ones used for painting minis. I had a 3 oz bottle of black air brush primer, so I used that. I got through all of the front, and the majority of the backs. I need more primer.

The next step is to rub them all down with silver gilders wax. That part takes forever but is worth it. I will then put a light irridescent coat of powder on the top to make them look more like fish scales and less like plain metal. Here is how they look now.

Will update when I get more progress.

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Fish scales, fish scales rolly poly fish scales

6/5/2018

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So I am still working on Talleg. I have a few pieces in the works, but I decided to talk about the scale armor today. I am also almost done with her tabard. The belt is shaping up. I will post about those when theya re closer to done.

So I have been trying to decide how to do the fish scale armor. I wanted it to look like shark scales. I just don't think I have the level to do those yet. I love what I started, but it is not practical at this moment. So I found a partial package of plastic spoons I got from the dollar store, and it started me thinking. They sort of look like fish scales. If I want to put some time into it I might be able to get them to look like shark scales.

So I pulled them out and cut off the handles. Then I pulled out my soldering iron/wood burning tool and turned it on. I used it to punch 3 holes in the spoons.

The idea being the 3 holes are used to tie them together like lamelar. Looks like it will work pretty good. I need to figure out how to get the rows to attach properly so they are offset and not lined up, but otherwise I kind of like how they look.

So next I need to make them a different color than white. It is currently dark so instead of wasting Plasti-dip I opted to use my new air brush to spray them with black primer. I was really surprised. A little goes a loooong way.

They look alright. I think this will work. I next tried out the gilders wax I bought earlier so see if the primer will take the wax. Looks like it might work ok. All I have is silver and emerald. I did a test with them. They are ok. I think I need to see if I can find a light metalic blue instead.

But this will work and I am kind of excited. I ordered 800 spoons off Amazon, and as soon as they get here I will work on getting the fish scale armor done.

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Fish scales pt 3

Fish Scales, pt 2

Fish scales, fish scales rolly poly fish scales

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