**UPDATE**
Hi everyone.
Here's my weekend update. A little later than usual, sorry about that.
It's been an incredibly busy week again, but very productive! I'm happy to say that all of the individual parts for batch one have now been fully weathered, and are just awaiting final assembly.
Last night I went ahead and paid shipping for all of batch one and generated tracking numbers. I've also sent out emails to everyone individually to pass on tracking details earlier today. If you think that you should have received one, but haven't, please check your spam folder. Give me a shout if you have any problems.
Rather than booking a collection, it's my plan to package orders as they're assembled and then drop them off at my local UPS drop-off point at the end of each day. It's my hope to have all of them sent out by the end of Tuesday.
Hope this is ok for everyone.
I'll document the assembly process for the next update. Really looking forward to seeing these come together as fully finished hilts!
This week was spent weathering the handwheels and boosters. As I was waiting on blacking solution to finish the boosters/spacers, I started the week weathering the pommels.
This started out by adding the scratches to each of the fully weathered pommels.
Once all of the scratches had been done, I added some light scuffing to the surfaces as well as some subtle build up of grime.
I LOVE weathering powder for this sort of thing, but in this case it would have required a clear coat of some sort (something I'm not fond of at all). So, instead of weathering powder, I've opted for oil paints for this one. I've found that the rather appropriately named "star ship filth" by Abteilung is PERFECT for dirtying up parts. I generally go on very heavy, and then clean off with cotton pads, leaving the built up filth in any hard to reach places.
Although I choose to leave the cap off my personal build, I've gone ahead and added some dirt to the edges of the cap too.
It's hard to get an accurate representation of how these look in person due to their reflective properties (the bane of my life). They really do look pretty cool in person though. It's subtle, but looks authentic. They really do look like genuinely old/used handwheels which is what I was going for. If anything, the actual effect is a lot subtler in person.
I've not installed the caps at this stage as this is the very last thing to do once everything is assembled on to the coach bolt.
The blacking solution arrived on Thursday and the latter part of the week was spent finishing boosters!
They were all still in a fully rusted state from last week and needed to have the rust removed from everywhere except the grooves.
Once they'd been cleaned up sufficiently, they were dipped in the blacking solution.
The rust acts as a barrier to the solution and so remains, whilst the areas that are cleaned up are affected by the chemicals.
The black oxide was then removed from the appropriate areas and the edges of the fins were highlighted, before dewatering oil was applied to prevent any further rusting.
I'm really happy with how these have turned out and can't wait to see them alongside the other parts as I begin to assemble the finished hilts!
Apologies for the rather brief update this week. I had a lot of non-work related things to attend to today and have struggled to get a moment to put pen to paper.
I hope you all like how the last few parts are looking though, and can't wait to start putting them all together over the next couple of days.
Signing off for now. Please bare with me while I reply to some of the messages I've received over the course of today though. I'll respond to everyone asap. If you've requested an address change/special request regarding shipping, please rest assured that I've received these, and will reply asap. It's no problem at all to void a shipment before it's shipped and book it back in under a different address (at no cost).
Going to have to call it a day for now, but will respond to all correspondence first thing tomorrow morning and update any shipping details where needed.
Thanks again for your patience everyone!
All the best and MTFBWY,
Dave