Monday 11 November 2019

15mm ACW Buildings From JR Miniatures

With an eye to another Fire and Fury game (possibly Corinth) sometime in the future I picked up some JR Miniatures 15mm ACW buildings from Meeplmart in Toronto.
The first building I tackled was Winter Quarters (JRM1630).
The detail in the windows was shallow but actually came out OK.  The shingles and the siding was rife with small bubbles. Something that was to become a bit of an issue with these buildings was the casting; poorly mixed resin is my guess. As it is a plain structure it has a lot of uses and would not be out of place for a century afterwards.

The nicest of the three buildings both in sculpting and in casting is Victorian House (JRM1608). Only a few bubbles here and there but the texture of the stone and the shingles is excellent.
 The black pitting in the window frames are air bubbles; they made painting the recessed windows a bit of a challenge.
The worst offender for casting issues was the 1859 Factory (JRM1611). The stonework was completely pockmarked. In the pictures below you can see the bubbles in the window frames and the roofing and the massive piece missing from the eave.
 The building itself is a little twisted as shown by the cockeyed windows.
Judging from the faded printing on the boxes these buildings had sat for quite some time at Meeplemart. I hope whoever is making these buildings now (if they are still in production) pays a little more attention to quality control as when they come out right they are nice buildings and fun to paint.

8 comments:

  1. Despite the poor casting these came out looking pretty darn good. 😀

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  2. If I had to guess, I would say that the molds needed to be wet or filled with release agent?

    If these were plaster buildings I would certainly say that the bubbles formed on the 'dry' mold.

    Painting looks good.

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    1. Interesting. The bottoms of the buildings are soft and rubs off on your hand, which is one of the reasons I thought it was poorly mixed resin.

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  3. The great paintwork appears to distract from the casting imperfections. I'm not sure if JR are still going, as the previous owners appear to have sold the business and restarted under the banner of Novus Designs.

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    1. That is interesting. The Novus Designs stuff I have is very nice and well cast.

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