A couple of mold boxes

I had a bit of spare time this past weekend so I made up mold boxes for the ECW casualties and the lamppost.

The bottom box with the lamppost will be used vertically, so I made the lantern end slightly broader than the top so it'll stand up better during the pouring process. The photo shows half a dozen deep dents made in the Sculpey in which the lamppost master is embedded. These are so the two halves will match up perfectly and prevent slipping when in use. That bulge emerging from the brown base will eventually form the funnel-shaped pouring hole.

The next stage will be to pour the silicone. Once set I'll carefully remove it, flip it over, and build another box around it. With two-part molds, it's essential to coat the surface of the first part with Vaseline before pouring the next batch of silicone. Without it the silicone will stick to the previous layer and be impossible to separate.

While I was at it I sculpted a couple of gutter pieces both for gaming use and for diorama-style bookends. These will be molded too and match up with the cobblestone pieces I made earlier. The small square piece on the metal plate at the top is the corner for the gutter and is ready for baking. I need to trim and sand some areas of these pieces for a better fit.

I think I've now made all the pieces needed for a good mold-making session, so once the weather warms up a bit I'll have at it.

For those who may be interested, Bruce Hirst of Hirst Arts is currently designing small brick molds which will be extremely useful for buildings and sewer/dungeon systems. I suspect I'll be sending an order for them one of these days.

Leaning on a lamppost

This afternoon I took a breather from the process of clearing up my man cave to make a few more odds and sods for molding. The weather's warming up to the point where I can pour the silicone and have it cure in reasonable time.

A recent discussion on another forum about casualty figures reminded me I needed a few for my 10mm ECW collection, so I made a trio of generic Civil War types. These'll replace the poker chips now doing duty in my games, which do the job but lack visual appeal.

Alongside them is a lamppost of the traditional type, this one in 1/56 scale, which is intended for Pulp/Victorian games and also for bookends along with the cobblestones I made earlier. A more complicated piece, it'll be made into a two-part mold. I'll cover that part when I come to it.

The pole is made from the inner tube of a ballpoint pen, and the brown base is a wooden bead. The top part was constructed from four pieces of basswood cut to shape and glued along the edges, then capped by a square of basswood and a plaster component from the Hirst Arts small pipe mold. I used Puffy paint to fill any small gaps along the edges, building it up to form the frames for the 'glass.' The crossbar is a bit larger than it would be in this scale so resin can flow into it. As it is, after pouring the resin I'll need to gently squeeze the mold to persuade any air bubbles to escape.

More on the whole molding thing later when I get time.

A load of old cobble...stones.

(Stirring music begins playing softly beneath voice-over) After a blitzkrieg of tidying, the house is now unnervingly clean and clear of clutter, ready for viewing by potential buyers. (Music rises) Only a lone outpost of clutter remains, resisting the oncoming tide of cleanliness (Music rises toward a crescendo), its lone occupant fighting to keep the hordes of neatness at bay. And that isolated outpost, that solitary fortress of clutter is - my work table! (Music ends on a crashing, discordant note followed by a duck call).

Yes, with all the stresses and strains of selling a house I have to lapse into a bit of Pythonesque silliness sometimes or I'll go Doolally-tap.

Anyway...

Some modeling is still going on here in limbo. I decided to make as many master models for molding purposes as I could, since OOMOO30 has something of a limited shelf-life once opened. The next little project is a batch of cobblestone pieces for gaming and making bookends.

Someone on the Hirst Arts Facebook page suggested the use of a type of scrapbooking material for making cobblestone surfaces. The photos of the results impressed me so I sought it out for myself - and came up dry. My local branch of Hobby Lobby didn't have the thin pressed foam material (called Champagne Bubbles if anyone's interested). What they did have was a hinged plastic thingy by a company called The Paper Studio. It has a lot of dimples on one side with matching studs on the other. I gather this particular whatsit is used by scrapbookers to make embossed paper. A sheet of paper is placed between the two leaves and the whole thing fed into a device like a small old-fashioned mangle/clothes wringer.

I saw it would work equally well for making cobblestone-like impressions in Sculpey so I bought one. Once on the workbench, I rolled out a blob of Sculpey onto the dimpled plastic using two pencils to guide the roller and keep the thickness constant - in this case a smidge over a quarter-inch thick. Once rolled flat enough, the Sculpey picked up the impressions and I cut it to 2 inch and 1 1/2 inch squares. These were then baked as usual.

The results of the first pressing, baked and ready for painting.

These should take molding pretty well. The 2-inch squares will be used for roads and the display area of bookends (I have a Penny Dreadful/Ripper Street theme in mind for these. Just need to make a couple of old-fashioned gas lamps). The 1 1/2 inch square has a half-inch wide by quarter inch thick part which will take Hirst Arts blocks for walls and such. These will serve for dungeon set-ups as well as wargaming. There's a slight step which will make the join stronger once glued.

I'll dig the paints out again and experiment with a few colour schemes just to see how they turn out. Painted or not, it won't affect the silicone. 

Movement trays take 2 - 3

Packing up stuff for a house move is a chore and a half, but my wife and I are making progress and we'll begin looking at properties in earnest this week. I had a bit of spare time over the weekend so I worked on the molds for the Dux B movement trays and other items.

First off, for the base I used an off-cut of half-inch foamcore since this is nice and flat and rigid enough for the job. For the sake of experimentation I decided to make three molds in one fell swoop, as it might work out easier when pouring the silicone. The new mold box is on the left; each of the bays will hold different master models to be molded. The one on the right is a mold I made earlier which will be for a new type of bookends base.

One thing mold makers learn quickly - make sure the mold box is watertight. Silicone molding material is a tricky bugger and it will find the smallest gap to flow through, resulting in a gods-awful mess and a lot of pointed words from the Better Half if you get it on the carpet. Be told.

I used a hot glue gun to fix the partitions in place and to seal the ends and edges. It looked like it had done a reasonable job in sealing the boxes, but did I think it had done the trick? No. (See above comment re. silicone). I smeared a good dollop of Liquid Nails over every join and edge. Once it's dry I'll apply a good coating of Pledge polish around these as well as the master models. Do I think it'll seal everything? Possibly...

Next I glued down the objects I want to take molds from in the bays.

L-R these are: - #1 Five Zanzibar slaver casualties (which have been hanging around for well over a year waiting for me to remember to buy the OOMOO30 silicone): #2 The Dux Britanniarum movement tray, now nice and flat and showing none of the warping silliness of the earlier version: #3 Some scratch-made Hirst Arts compatible doors, diamond-paned window, and a pair of recumbent statues. The two black strips are rubber pieces I found in a parking lot. I think they had come off a car or bike. I like the chevron pattern and thought it would make good decorative columns and trim. Because silicone rubber sticks extremely well to silicone rubber I'll coat these in a layer of melted Vaseline. Everything else is made of Sculpey - useful stuff.

So, that's the lot so far. We'll be busy this next week, but hopefully I'll find some time to pour the silicone and see what happens. Watch this space...

Movement trays take 2 - 2

I've not done much in the hobby lately. Work has been busy, plus our house is now on the market and I'm going to have to start packing stuff away ready to move out. Deep joy - not. Even so, I've made a little more progress with the movement tray for my Dux B. figures.

I've glued a layer of the trusty pizza box corrugated card on the bottom to bring up the depth, and smoothed out the edges and the insides of the cups with liquid nails. The next step will be to glue it down to a base and enclose it with foam core to make a silicone master mold from. The weather has warmed up to a remarkable degree so I shouldn't have any problems with the silicone.

Although nearly everything is going to be packed away, I'm going to keep going on this and a couple of other molding projects as-and-when. Who knows, I might clear my worktable enough to get a game in now and then.

Back to the drawing board - Movement trays, take 2.

Yeah, well, that didn't work...

My first attempt at making movement trays for my Dux Britanniarum figures didn't set my modelling world alight. The things warped and split all over the shop, so - back to the drawing board.

I decided to make a master of the tray using Sculpey then take a mold from it so I can then cast as many as I need out of resin. Now the weather's warming up it's possible for me to use OOMOO 30 RTV silicone molding material to make molds again.

First up, I made a flattened lump of Sculpey about 1/8th on an inch thick. A eighth of an inch is about as thin as it's practical to get for working with resin. I scalloped and smoothed-down the edges of the Sculpey to make it look irregular, then marked out where the recesses for the figures will go using a 1 cent coin. The six-figure base is standard for Dux B. I made the circles slightly irregular to reflect the relaxed formation-keeping discipline found even in elite troops of this period.

The Romano-British militia wait impatiently for their bases to be ready.

Once that was done I cut out discs of Sculpey to make the recesses. The stuff is spread on card, which won't be affected by the heat when it goes in the oven.

A militiaman tries the base for size.

Once it's baked I'll be able to make a mold from it. They'll get card bases and be finished off with flock and such to make them a bit different from each other. I'll need three such bases for the Romano-British Militia, two for the Warriors, and one for the Elite. When I get the Saxons, I'll make the necessary bases for them too.

Movement trays - 1

Moving 15mm figures en-masse can be a bit of a chore, so I decided to make a few movement trays for my Dux Britanniarum figures. These will be for the levy.

The basics are simple enough - a sandwich of liquid nails adhesive between two layers of stiff card, followed by more liquid nails on the top to create the shallow pits in which the figure bases fit.

First up, I marked out the circular areas where the figures will go by using a one cent piece. The bases are slightly smaller than the penny so I'll have a little space to play with. These movement bases are for the levy, which I assume will lack the ordered discipline of regular troops, so I made the placement of the circles a bit irregular to reflect their more relaxed formation.

Next, I smeared liquid nails around the circular marks without being too fussy about overspill. The main idea is to create areas in which the figures will sit and not slide off easily. 

I followed this up with a good dose of fine sand. The adhesive is nice and sticky so it retains a grip on the sand, and it sets hard without undue warping. 

The adhesive takes a few hours to set, but since I'm not in any hurry this isn't a problem. Once it's all dry/set, I'll paint it and apply a bit of dried tea in patches to represent rough foliage.

Dux Britanniarum Romano-British levy almost there

Progress with the new figures has been slow and intermittent these past couple of weeks, but I've almost finished the Romano-British levy. It's been a while since I painted anything over 10mm in size and it took a bit of practice to get back into the swing of things. My eyesight isn't what it used to be and my brushes are looking their age too. Even so, I think I've achieved a reasonable result.

I didn't bother with fancy decoration since these are your workaday folks called forth from field and workshop to defend their land against the Saxon invaders. When I get to the more prosperous men of the Teulu and Combrogi then I'll attempt more decorative clothing - eyesight permitting.

The shields are next on the to-do list. At the moment I'm thinking of ordering the decals made for the purpose by Little Big Men Studios. They'll save a lot of eye-strain. The backs of the shields will be a basic brown. One trick I found is to stick the shields to a strip of masking tape, as it'll hold them in place whilst they're painted. After that, the Combrogi will take their turn on the painting block.

Romano-British - Painting under way

Work has kept me busy these last few days but I managed to make at least a start on the Dark Age Romano-British for Dux Britanniarum.

These chaps are levy and Combrogi who would wear a lot of civilian clothing of various hues from natural dyes. Thanks to my archaeologist stepdaughter and her specialist knowledge of Dark Age fabrics and dying methods I know what colours to paint them. I gave them an undercoat of Vallejo British Army khaki - which seems appropriate - as this will make the best base colour. As usual I painted the flesh areas next. I'm not 100% sure how I'll base the figures, but I'm leaning toward using movement trays to reduce the wear and tear from handling.

Dux Britanniarum - Romano-British

My order from Splintered Light Miniatures arrived yesterday, and very nice figures they are too. They have lovely proportions and minimal flash, and come with separate shields. I now have the Romano-British starter army along with some Dark Ages civilians to populate the village.

The photo shows the new shinies. Top-centre is the command element of Nobles and champions, along with a priest, standard bearer, musician and a nice mounted figure. Below them are the six Comanipulares (elite troops), next the four archers, then the bulk of the force which consists of the eighteen levy. Top left is a pile of shields and an odd figure (far left) who appears to be a Saracen (?). Below them are the dozen civilians, including a nice village blacksmith. Below them at bottom-left are the dozen Milites/Combrogi, who make up the standard warriors of the force.

The next job will be to trim off what little flash there is and give them a good soak to remove any molding powder. A friend of mine swears by soaking figures in methylated spirits but I think I'll stick to ordinary detergent.