The Loose Association of Wargamers

Yesterday was not a good day:

• I found out the local print shop will close today. This is where I get all my flags printed using their high resolution laser printer. I only found out as I'd popped in to get some more 15 mm ACW flags printed. Don't know what I'll do now as there's no obvious alternative in the town.
• On my return home I realised that I may have buggered up the latest flag batch slightly. I design the flags to be 17 - 20 mm high with a variable central section to wrap round the flag pole. The latest ones were 13 & 9 mm high and I forgot to resize the central section: I just scaled down the image. This morning I'll be making test flags to see if I've got away with it.
• I varnished over a dozen 15 m figures and discovered a painting glitch on one horse and another horse dried satin when it should have been matt. The latter was due to Vallejo beige brown which dries perfectly matt then turns shiny after varnishing. It's happened before and I should have remembered and "talced" the paint to prevent this happening. I had to repaint the horse which thankfully didn't take long
• Having let the varnish dry I popped the figures off their painting stands. Sometimes the hot glue sets very hard and I managed to pull a rider of a horse! The reason for this is I didn't seat the rider properly in the first place. There then followed one and a half hours of messing about trying to reseat the rider without damaging the paint work. In the end I had to repaint the rider's coat and some of the saddle: I started with just the edges but I had trouble matching the colour due to the poor natural light and having to use a lamp (which I hate).
• Finally, I glued some of the new figures on to MDF bases with UHU. I was careful of the strings that UHU invariably creates only to find out an hour later that I'd managed to get some on the blanket roll of one figure. There then followed another wasted hour as I tried to remove the glue (I ended up with some bare metal) and repaint the affected section. This was harder than usual as I was painting one figure in a multi-figure base so access was tricky and of course I had to touch up one of the other figures on the base.

Now these are all very minor issues given the current situation but this all started as a relaxing modelling session but became a series of "disasters". The best laid plans ....

I am not flush with cash, but I am contemplating replacing my inkjet printer with a laser. The damned ink is expensive, laser toner gets you more bang for your buck. Yes the laser is pricy, but we are talking 200 GBP for a printer scanner and each sheet is better and much cheaper.

grizzlymc wrote: ↑Fri Oct 30, 2020 10:22 am I am not flush with cash, but I am contemplating replacing my inkjet printer with a laser. The damned ink is expensive, laser toner gets you more bang for your buck. Yes the laser is pricy, but we are talking 200 GBP for a printer scanner and each sheet is better and much cheaper.

I'd though of doing that but colour laser cartridges are not cheap and puts me off. It's cheap per page but a big chunk each time. My mono laser cartridges last me nearly a year.

Get one with multi cartridges, and put money in a cookie jar every time you print.

My wife bought me a Lazer scanner/printer a couple of years or more back. I highly recommend one. When I buy flags I scan them and print out a couple of copies which I use. I prefer slightly thinner paper than the flags come on as it's easier to fold, swirl and such. So far no flags have faded at all and on the table are indistinguishable from the originals.

No, unlike inkjets, laser toner doesn't fade, it doesn't run in PVA either.

grizzlymc wrote: ↑Fri Oct 30, 2020 10:22 am I am not flush with cash, but I am contemplating replacing my inkjet printer with a laser. The damned ink is expensive, laser toner gets you more bang for your buck. Yes the laser is pricy, but we are talking 200 GBP for a printer scanner and each sheet is better and much cheaper.

Why don’t you use HP Instant Ink? Their print plans are way more affordable than buying your own cartridges - especially if you are a regular printer

I don't like HP hardware, and I am happier running my own printer. Toner is cheap per page and the printer is not outrageous. Officeworkks have one for a bit over 300 pacific pesos. I will literally put cash in the jar until I have enough to buy the next bit of toner. Most of the maps I print have more blue than yellow and more yellow than magenta. If Ithe cookie jar flows over, I'll buy a better bottle of vino for boxing day.

Sorry to hear of your travails, Martin - hope today is better.

I use a 3 colour and black oki, 130new and a set of 4 toners is about 120, but you will replace the black then the blue long before red and yellow.