Casting

Tabletop's casting operation was tiny...

The whole place, shop, warehouse, casting room and Bob and Kate's living space was situated in two three story Edwardian terrace houses with shop fronts... When I started they didn't need all the space they had so the 'house' above the second shop (55 Mansfield Rd Daybrook) was rented out to a couple of Police officers, who would come and go though the shop or back rooms at will.

The shop fronts were backed by a small room with a fireplace which I assume would have been the main living room in days gone by, but either Bob or the previous occupants had had the living space moved up-stairs and added a kitchen and Bathroom on the first floor... But at the back of the old main room was what might have been the old kitchen, or scullery, a room 4 yards square that opened on to the 'back-yard'... this was where all the casting was done.

When I started they had one casting machine, an ex-Citadel, swinging weight thing powered by a belt driven motor. White metal casting works by spinning a circular mould at a few 100 RPM and then dropping the hot metal into the central feed-hole and letting gravity, centrifugal and centripetal forces do their work...

Saunders Spinning weight machine similar to the TTG one

The only real issue with this is that it works too well, and pressure is needed to stop the still hot metal from shooting out the sides of the mould. Early machines, like TTG's, had three 'towers' place evenly on the spinning plate from which swung levers with weights attached which when spinning, swung outward and levered the top plate shut.
Cleaver huh?

Well to a certain extent it was an ideal way to work, but unfortunately it had one big draw back... The areas in-between the swinging weight would receive less pressure that the rest of the mould, and as a result these areas would flash (excessively fill) the cavities and if these cavities were large or particularly close to the edge of the mould, the still molten metal would shoot out of the mould and spray the inside of the machine... and as the lids on these machine were quite low to the spinning plate, and never shut satisfactorily, the metal would spray from the machine and blast a line of cooling lead alloy across the crotch of the operative... It didn't hurt, fortunately, but it would leave a line of metal embedded in the trousers of every caster in town... For years after it was possible to tell people who were working in the same job as me for other companies, by the 'Caster's Crotch' they all had...

In the middle of the summer of '83 TTG took delivery of another new casting machine, and this one was a bit different. The new machine, with an electric motor driving it's spinning plate directly, and its pressure controlled by a pneumatic ram was a huge step forward. Speed and pressure were now controlled by the caster, allowing for minor adjustments to keep a warming mould spinning for longer in a day. Previously a mould would have to be rested to cool once the swing weights could no long apply enough pressure to keep it running without the flash becoming too bad...

The new machine was delivered by MCP (Multi-Coupling Pneumatic), with a gentleman called Ray Tutt doing the fitting, whist his boss Mike chatted with Bob and Richard. Ray said that the machine that was being delivered was the first in a run of new machines which Citadel had ordered to replace their old spinning weight machines, and we were getting the prototype model ahead of them.

The new machine was fabbo, the pressure controller cured the flash and spitting issued almost instantly, and the dropping of the plates well below the the lid height meant that if you did get a mould that spat, the metal no-longer splashed into your groin...

BYC7 sculpted by Ali Morrison

TTG kept the old machine, so across that summer there were pretty much always two of us working in the tiny room... As I mentioned in the last post, Rees Taylor was one of the other casters, who I was told was just making up a little pin-money whilst being a full-time Father, but my main work mate was Richard Evans, a 27 year old local man, who I don't think actually spoke to me for over a week or so once I'd started...
He and  I would become firm-friends over the next four years while I worked at TTG.
(more on Richard later, a very interesting character, who I was to discover had his own history in the Wargames-world)

Casting isn't a bad job, its not difficult to master, but it is hot and heavy work, and requires long spells at the machine if the job is to be done efficiently... and although I'd jump at a chance to do anything else at TTG if the chance arose, I didn't mind if I had to stand casting all day... it gave the two of us in the tiny room time to chat, and listen to music...

Oh, and the first mini I ever cast... Well it was one of these... BYC7 Asisiactic light-horsemen with bow and javs.

Full time.

So after two or three weeks of working on Saturdays, I knew I wanted a job at TTG.

I wrote a letter, asking if they had any vacancies, despite the fact that it would have been easier just to ask face-to-face, but that was what I'd been told in school, so that what I did, best hand-writing and everything...

Thulg, illo by Tony Ackland.

The next time I was in the shop after school, Kate said...
"I got your letter... its left me in a bit of a dilemer..."

"Why?" I wimpered, preparing myself for a big dose of rejection...

"Well" she continued, "your mate Mark asked me for the same thing yesterday as well..."

My life hung on one sentence...

"...but, I think there is something we can do..."

TTG were planning on going though a bit of an expansion, they had started a miniatures range, which was making the 15mm Laserburn minis, a few 25mm sci-fi and a small range of Dark Age 15mm's,
which they had been licensing in the USA to a company called Alliance Miniatures.

Now, it had come down the grape-vine that another US company, Heritage Miniatures, were going bust, and that Alliance in the States wanted to buy up the failed company and license them back to Tabletop for production here in the UK. Bob was already selling quite large numbers of the Heritage Napoleonics through the shop and though mail-order, so picking up on an existing range would have doubled their miniature out-put in one swoop.
So if the deal went through, Kate was sure that there would be work for both Mark and Myself, in the newly expanded Tabletop Miniatures.

As far as I remember, the deal was still to be finalized in the US, but Kate said if I could do a few days casual work, in the casting room, to see if I was up to the task, then the job would be mine when I finished school...
Casting???
Well I'd seen the machine and moulds in the back-room but I'd never done it at that time, but yes, " I can do that" as Yosser Hughes would have said, "Gizza job."

As it turned out, the deal with Heritage fell though, someone else bought the failing/failed company and their big selling Napoleonic range would remain with Skytex (the UK agent) for a while yet, but Bob, indomitable as he was, made his mind up overnight, with the aid of Alliance in the US, that TTG would start their own range of 15mm Napoleonics, using their great young sculptor Aly Morrison who was already working on a Medieval range of 15mms.

If anyone reading this has any more details about Alliance or Heritage in the early 80's I would be delighted to hear from you... I owe my Life in Miniatures almost directly to these two American companies, and I'd love to find out just exactly what went off in June or July of '83, I heard that Alliance were out bid, is this the truth? Who did pick up Heritage? What happened to them? I don't think that they are still out there... all information gratefully received...

So, short of doing a few trail days in the casting room I had a job... £35 a week for 5 days, 40 hours Tuesday to Saturday.