8047 Macedonian Cavalry
Dated: January 11, 2003.
All figures painted by Roland Kupski of Germany.
All text by the webmaster:
Macedonian Prodromos: Unarmored Macedonian light cavalry. Scouting role, usually carried the 3.6m (12 ft) long xyston spear (5cm long in 1/72 scale). This particular one has dropped or broken his xyston and is using his sword.
Macedonian Companion cavalrymen. Heavy cavalry. Alexander's cavalry carried no shields during this period - they were armed with the 3.6m/12ft xyston. Only swords, no xyston are supplied with this set, it is recommended that customers use broom bristles, florist wire or other such material and cut to size. Tips for making xyston can be found on the "Tips" page at the front of this website.*
Many thanks to Mr. Roland Kupski.
*We've often been asked why we don't include the long pikes or spears with sets 8043, 8045 and 8047. The answer is a technical one.
Plastic injection molds are filled by forcing melted plastic through it. As the plastic runs through the mold, it cools and when the mold opens, the plastic drops out as a solid sprue.
Long thin pikes are hard to fill because the plastic running through it may solidify before it gets to the end. There's only a little plastic in the pike, and it cools quickly because of the large surface area to volume ratio of the pike.
Methods to solve the problem:
1) Enlarge the diameter of pike. This causes more plastic to flow through the pike and the plastic doesn't cool as quickly. The downside of this is large telephone pole like weapons (commonly seen in metal figures.)
2) Have plastic enter the pike through several inlets. The plastic therefore doesn't have as far to go to fill the pike. The downside is that the pike may have crinks in it as plastic elongates after it cools, furthermore plastic meeting plastic coming from another inlet may fail to mix properly.
3) Increase temperature of plastic and/or pressure of incoming plastic. Downside: flash and premature wearing down of the mold.
As our initial focus group of customers indicated that they would have provided their own pikes anyway, in lieu of supplied crooked or thick pikes, we went ahead and designed the sets without the pikes. Final thought: long plastic pieces are best extruded, not injected.