Tarn Model Foundry

I realise that Tarn Model Foundry has not helped matters by ‘going silent’ on the matter of outstanding orders, and I sincerely apologise to you all awaiting deliveries.

The very high and somewhat depressing failure rate of the hand poured gravity feed resin moulds drove me to seek an alternative, in this case spin casting. The high capital cost of suitable equipment required that I build a home grown solution, and this has taken far longer than anticipated. The majority of problems have been solved, and last night was the first spin which resulted in a “successful” casting. (See my earlier post with pic)

Outstanding orders will now be delivered as soon as possible, and as way of apology, all orders paid for before 25th February will receive something extra in their delivered order. As orders as posted I’ll be getting in touch individually to confirm posting and to further apologise personally.

I can assure you all that lessons have been learnt, and I’ll be doing my best not to repeat them.

This is the first successful spin of the new spincast mould. It’s taken a few weeks of R&D to get it to this stage, so apologies for the lack of news.

Clockwise from the 12 o’clock position there is

710 – Policeman with speed camera (now cast as one piece figure)

704 – Marshal with flag (copy of metal version – detailed re-release scheduled soon)

714 – Marshal with debris

705 – Marshal with extinguisher, new details on figure and fire extinguisher now separate piece

713 – Marshal with broom

709 – Marshal with phone

707 – Fireman standing at ease – now a one piece figure

702 – Spectator in anorak

712 – Rally marshal at startgate #2

715 – Amateur photographer

This will help speed up production, and more importantly reduce the failure rate, which was running depressingly high when attempting to mould stock for the outstanding orders. The very poor success rate has had an adverse effect on production of figures for sale, and this has effectively halted shipments since the start of the year.

All orders are being slowly processed, so please be patient, you will get your figures.

Casting in resin is proving to be painful and slow,  with some moulds proving to have a success* rate of less than 10% in gravity casting. The commercial solution is to invest in a vacuum resin casting machine, but initial estimates came to about £2,500+VAT, so that was a non-starter. The alternative was to spin cast, and a suitable spin casting machine is close to £1,000. So I’m now getting some MDF discs cut to size, and will be trying spin casting as soon as I get the discs back and I can assemble my own machine and create the first mould. Using 9in (23cm) discs should mean that I can cast about 8 to 10 figures in a single spin and get production back on track.

For those people who have already ordered,  I will also be including a new, as yet unreleased,  figure in your order, to make up for the delays.

A new figure will be released this weekend, but all other mastering has taken a hit whilst I concentrate on casting duds – or it feels that way anyway… 

* Success = Figure free from surface bubbles.

The banner image has been changed to reflect the 2009 goal of Tarn Model Foundry – To be producing 50+ different figures by the end of the year. As each new figure is released I’ll be filling in the white boxes with grey, and hopefully you’ll be able to see some progress towards the goal.

To keep on track I need to produce a new figure every 2 weeks, but in practice the target is closer to 3 figures every month for 9 months, to allow for holidays and other family things.

Early 2009 will be spent concentrating on completing all the figures I’ve already promised! Yes, more spectators on the way, and more modern media as well.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the holidays so far, and a happy new year to you all.

Lawrence.