I acquired another group of Archive figures from their long-defunct “Star Rovers” line. One of them was 2206, “Armando Garcia, Texican Space Ranger”. Armando had a jet pack and a blaster or laser rifle (and a huge sombrero). He also had a partner, Travis B. Crokit, another Texican Space Ranger. On page 5.03 of the Star Rovers Module 1 game rules, there is a nice drawing of both of them and some other characters.
At the time of the mold making for Armando, I did not yet have Travis, but I do now. He is quite cool as well, and wears goggles – looking like Doc Brown from Back to the Future! He will eventually be the subject of one of my molding projects as well.
As for Armando, I made a two-piece mold from Castaldo Quick Sil. I continued to experiment with different configurations for my pouring aperture – this time with pencils and golf tees. I also tried to see if I could add something to the mold that would help me identify it better as after graphite powder is applied its pretty hard to tell sometimes. In this case – I added “MEX”.
The mold design worked well enough. I was able to cast without hardly any failures, which made me happy. I again used 67% tin and 33% lead at 565° F.
I cast 24, and again sent 12 off to Buck Surdu for his future sci-fi gaming projects. Once I get Travis done, I may add some other retro-looking sci-fi weapons to the Rangers. Buck just sent me a nice sprue of some that I will look to mold for that purpose (thanks Buck). After seeing what he did with the Star Ducks (adding sci-fi weapons), I am intrigued to try this as well.
