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New One-Piece Resin Vehicles

New one-piece Universal Carrier

New One-Piece Resin Vehicles
with Evan Allen

Way, way back in the mists of time, when Flames Of War was still in Version 1, it became obvious that trucks and other transport vehicles were not required to spend too much time on the table in a lot of situations. With resin bodies and metal wheels and other parts, they cost the same to produce as a tank or any other AFV, and took at least as long to assemble, but got less use. We looked at ways of making them better value so they could still be used without breaking the gaming budget.

The best plan at the time seemed to be the "One Piece Resin" cast range. We could keep as much detail as the original full kit versions but attached to a base to enable the resin to be poured. But this meant they would be filled in from the chassis downwards to that base. There was some texture added to the bases, and other detailing, to help disguise some of that filler underneath, but it was still there.

The old Universal Carrier one-part mould Old one-piece Universal Carrier
Our standard method of resin casting produces parts that are flat on one side.
When the resin production team started making the D&D Collector’s Series range, they mastered some newer, more technically demanding casting techniques, using two-part moulds. We decided that we could use the same technology to revamp our one-piece resin vehicle range - still providing an economic alternative to the 'mult-media' resin and metal kits, but getting rid of the cast-on bases.
Two-part mould
Two-part moulds are the key to producing single-piece resin vehicles without bases.
Old vs new - one-piece resin Jeep Now with this new style starting to appear we have single castings that need no - or minimal - assembly before painting, and actually have a bit more detail in some cases than the existing items they replace. This also meant that we could expand the one-piece resin range to include not only trucks and jeeps but also some of the smaller tracked vehicles that you need in large numbers, like Universal Carriers and those small tankette-type AFVs.
Universal Carrier original master model Universal Carrier original master model Universal Carrier original master model
At the same time the masters were modified to better suit this new process, we also took the opportunity to clean up and improve the masters to incorporate more and better detail, including suspension and axle detail as well. New resin Jeep
 Right: The underside of the new resin Jeep.

The one-piece castings retain that simple assembly style, with minimal parts to add - just weapons and crews in most cases - but no more bases or having to spend time carefully aligning wheels and tracks on those small models.

~ Evan 

New one-piece Mortar Carrier
 


Last Updated On Thursday, March 12, 2015 by James at Battlefront