So long and Tanks for all the brass

So, I mean, hobby progress: I have just wildly increased my Raven Guard tankage by adding two Repulsors to my army, one regular and one spicy.  

But that’s not specifically what I brought you here to talk about today.  Let's talk about the downsides of modernisation away from brass.

So a little known fact about brass is that it’s naturally antibacterial, so all the old brass doorknobs we used to have were actually really good at preventing the spread of disease…  hang on, sorry, wrong brass rant.  I’m trying to talk about etched brass.  

Foregworld etched brass

Not-Forgeworld etched brass

Back when GW leaned more heavily into non-plastic products and also customisation and conversion was a bigger part of the hobby, Forgeworld used to produce these lovely sheets of acid etched brass that you could cut out and stick on whatever.  Ideally suited for flat surfaces, although depending on the shape sometimes you could also bend them onto e.g. shoulder pads.  In latter days, off-brand alternatives popped up in eBay in a variety of common icons (which were honestly better, I just wanted lots of simple icons more than the complex designs of Forgeworld).  As a long time hater of transfers but also of freehand, I was a big fan of using them on all my vehicles, as well as a few other places.  

Nice and easy symbol addition to a Gladiator (If you overlook it facing backwards on the right hand side, which nobody seems to notice)

As well as the symbol on the right breast, I lovingly bent another symbol to fit the curved left shoulder plate

On the smaller scale, the crux terminatus pinning the cloak on Shadow Captian Yiraka's chest was replaced by a small raven decoration instead for added uniqueness.

Alas, in the fullness of time I ran out of large ravens for my vehicles and when I went to buy more they’re simply not available anymore.  I can find the Forgeworld sheet, if I’m willing to pay a lot, but it only has small plain ravens.  The plain 3rd party sheets are gone, and my presumption is that the market has been superseded by 3d printed customisation parts.  

Behold my depletedness

As such I dug out an old project, some free 3d models of Repulsor doors that I had modified to emboss a Raven symbol on for a friend who was dabbling with Hawk Lords.  I sent them off to a printer (who I’d have been happy to recommend if they hadn’t later gone silent and ignored several requests for quotes for further work) and slapped them on my two new Repulsors.

They look pretty good.  I am happy with them.  BUT…  I would have been happier with brass.  These doors were just a fraction of a millimeter too big, and a bit of filing was required to get them in.  I also would have preferred the symbol to be on the blank patch just in front of the door, rather than on the door itself.  But most damning and weirdly, they seemed to be resistant to paint.  I’ve used plenty of 3d parts before, and this was a new one on me.  

The black primer went on fine and looks great, but when I later went to paint the symbol with corax white, it resisted it like it was hydrophobic.  It took several attempts to get a clean coat that I could then layer up to be pure white.  I have no doubt that I will find the paint weak and prone to chipping, but at least in that regard I am lucky that the doors are recessed and protected.  

Regular readers will know I am, in general, a fan of 3d printing.  I have done a fair bit of modelling myself, and I love the wealth of new options that cost effective small batch model production brings, but I firmly believe that 3d printing is not just straight better than everything else in all cases, and I do lament some of what we’ve lost along the way.