Victorian Science Fiction How To

The Making of Boiler Plate

It all starts with a lump of clay

This the process of Converting a Koubu Fighting Suit into a VSF walking machine, I decided to employ polymer clay. In this case a blend of Sculpty and Fimo. This material is nice in that it does not harden on its own and is not overly stick. This allows of an endless period of exploration. Along the way I discovered a little trick to create my own miniature boiler plate.

The key with polymer clay is to work stepwise. One can harden the work and then add to it with fresh clay. Here I have made some basic shapes and baked then to serve as a base to work from.

Here I am attempting to cut some rings. Water can be use to lubricate and as a release agent for the polymer clay. I used a set of round punches to press the circles cuts into the clay.

To add to the VSF feel of the part I decided to add rivets to the rings and some of the small plates. This was done by forming small regular dots of fresh polymer clay to the rings with a tool I introduced on my Rivets page. This is the Swiss Beader, a set of steal tools with a small dished out tip. By pressing fresh polymer clay onto the already baked ring with a slight rocking action, a very nice rivet head can be made.

Here we see some parts prepared for the Conversion a Koubu Fighting Suit. The rivets on the rings adds to the steam powered look of the parts.

This is my first attempt at making a steal bulkhead door. It was done four steps.

The basic shape was formed by rolling out the polymer clay cut to shape and baked.
The outer rim was cut from a rolled out piece of polymer clay set on its side wrapped around the blank above, joined and baked.
The hinges and handle where formed from thin stripes placed and baked
The rivets were formed from a thin roll of polymer clay pressed into the rivet head with the Swiss Beading tool and then everything was baked again.

In one last step I have added rivets to the hinges and the edge of the rim.
The end result is rather crude, but I felt encouraged enough to attempt more.

These detail parts required only two bakings. The plates and rings can be added to any model to add to its VSF feel.

The technique is quite simple, so I was able to churn out quite a few little plates.

To start VSF over go to The Victorian Science Fiction Page.
To see where this inspiration leads go to How To Page.
For more models go to Model Gallery Page.
To get all the way home go to Bryan's Home Page.

I hope to be able to add more latter.

Thank you for looking:

DyeHard

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.