He blinded me with bat-science.

We had a really fun time figuring out how to model the chemistry set. We had a few parts put aside that were left over from the 50's Polar Lights Batmobile model. But we wanted to make two lab tables (see reference cave photo below) and needed a bunch more tubing and glassware.

We cut several clear sprues into smaller tubes and then molded some beakers and larger pieces by using a hot glue gun into a bowl of ice water and sort of sculpting the shapes we wanted. Colored potions were provided by using Tamiya clear color acrylic paints and we mixed a couple of our own as well. Additionally in this table we used: A christmas tree light bulb, a small fuse, an end to a guitar string, paper clips, scrounged bases, wire, a part from a star trek set and a glue container lid.

Back to work.

After a long break, we are back in full force for the new year working on the batcave project. Alex draws up some plans for the chem lab tables.

1:25 1966 TV Batcycle

We picked 1:25 scale for this diorama. That is my favorite scale for modeling and I have some nice pieces done in that scale. It does offer some challenges however. There has never been an officially licensed 1:25 Batmobile model . (In fact the only Batmobile model ever released officially was the 1966 Aurora one that was in 1:32 scale.) Nor was there ever a Batcycle, Batcopter or Batboat until very recently. There was a Batcycle in 1:19 scale and a Batboat in 1:32 (again made by Aurora in 1967) There was never a Batcopter made (though one was planned)

That may seem like a plan-killer but as custom modelers, we usually make what we need anyway. And over the years some garage kits have been offered to fill in the gaps. We'll talk about all the vehicles separately. Up first - the Batcycle. Nobody has ever bothered to make a garage kit Batcycle, I suppose they figured that the Aurora 1:19 was nice enough. But we need one much smaller than that so it's time to scratch-build.

I've known Mike Stutelberg for years. He's a great artist and craftsman and has designed many bat-models for Horizon and Polar Lights etc. over the years. If you have the Polar Lights Batmobiles or the smaller Johnny Lightning bat-vehicle diecast kits, he designed many of them and the box art as well.

Mike has built his own batcave before though it doesn't feature all the TV acoutrements that we're trying for. I knew he had a 1:25 handbuilt Batcycle that he never finished. I contacted him and he graciously lent us his master to possibly have molds made and get cast. We are cleaning it up and will hopefully get it out to the caster soon.

Then there were gadgets...

I met Roman Schelling through the Custom Batman forum where he was showcasing a beautiful Wayne Manor he had modeled for a film. I approached him about possibly modeling some peices for the batcave and he was enthusiastic and offered his very gracious help. He made these pieces by hand using balsa wood, cardboard, and Sculpy polymer clay. When they arrived, we were very excited. The plan is to modify a few of them and add to them.Believe it or not, though he made a TON of pieces, we still don't have all the familiar batcave props. What a great head start though! Thanks Roman!

It started out innocently enough.

For years I had mused about building a full-on TV Batcave in my favorite 1:25 scale. It seemed like a great way to display and showcase my various handbuilt 1:25 Bat-models and it would be a chance to do something nobody had done yet - model the TV Batcave.


But it also always seemed like a huge project that would take forever and so I never got around to starting it. Years later, I thought it would be a great project for me and my son Alexander to do together. We had already built a few mini dioramas together and this seemed like a nice big multi-weekend project to tackle. But we kept putting it off.














Then in 2004 I saw this model on eBay. I thought it looked great and was amazed to find an atomic pile already existing in 1:25 scale.

I won the auction over a holiday weekend when everyone must have been traveling and I got it really affordably. When it arrived, I was amazed at the build-quality: Welded metal struts, cast resin pieces, multi-media texturing. It was VERY nice. I then realized that this was how the big batcave could possibly get built - by supplementing our own modeling with other pieces by other craftspeople. It would still be a huge, time-consuming folly, but it just might happen.

I decided I wanted to get one that wasn't anchored already to a diorama so I contacted the builder - Jim Graham and he told me he could make me another, freestanding Atomic Pile.


And so, a Batcave - That's it. It's an omen. We shall model - a Batcave!