Sunday, April 2, 2017

Clever by Half: My First Scratchbuilt Mold

       What little gaming I have been doing has involved 2mm armies. I started thinking of using Battle Cry scenarios on a grid board. However, I didn't have enough terrain pieces. There is no shortage of wooded terrain pieces, however, I lacked hills. The price for hills are around $2.00 a piece from Irregular. Right now money is tight,  so that was not an option.  I then thought, why not make my own? And while I like the Irregular terrain pieces, the hills from Irregular makes it hard to deploy forces on them. I decided to make my own mold. So before going to work, using some clay I made a small hill that was flat enough to deploy a 4 piece unit on it. I then mixed the rubber to make a one piece mold. By the time I got home from work the mold would be ready to use.

     When I got home the mold was indeed ready to use. I poured the first hill and was happy with the result. After the second hill it dawned on me how much metal my mold used. And at $5.00 a ingot, I was going trough quite a bit of metal. I switched to my scrap metal, to save my good casting metal. On the third pouring, I spelt some metal on the work board. After it solidified, before it went back into the pot, I realized that it looked like a nice little hill. I poured a few more spots of metal on the work board and using a wood stick, could shape the hill.  I stopped using my mold and  made a couple of more hills this way. They saved quite a lot of metal, and look better than the molded hills. I plan to pour some more soon; maybe even try to make them stackable to make different level hills.  I went trough approximately 3 ingots of metal, enough for at least 7 Irregular hills. Maybe I didn't save too much money doing it myself.

   I wish I could provide some photographs, however I misplaced my card reader and the SD card I use for my gaming.

10 comments:

  1. Its a good idea. Did you consider using plaster of paris in the mold? or using something like sculpey to shape hills then bake in an oven?

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    1. I hate mixing things, including the rubber I use for molds. But at least this rubber is a 50-50 mix so I don't screw up. I should experiment with the sculpey; I bought some to try to make figures with. Right now I have enough hills pour; but then again they could be returned to the melting pot.

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  2. Most of my hills are expanded polystyrene with either a flocked mat covering, or simply painted over then flocked. Some examples of these I have shown in pics on my blog spot.

    I will state here that I have a marked preference for 'stepped' hills, as being easy to stand figures on, and easier to nake rules for.

    The downsides are that making them can be messy, and they aren't what you'd call robust. But when one has practically an inexhaustible supply of the basic raw material (the polystyrene) that doesn't really matter a whole lot!

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    1. I didn't think of using polystyrene for the hills. I did try foam, the kind you find in sheets at hobby stores. I didn't like how light they were. I like the heft of the hills in lead. Also, the grids I use are only 1 and 1/4 inch square, the hills are rather small. Of course hills for any other scale made of lead wouldn't make much sense.

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    2. If foam rubber hills don't float your boat, neither will expanded polystyrene, which is even lighter. You could I guess mount them on hardboard sheets (or similar) for the heft. For mine, though, the lightness of weight is an upside.

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    3. I think the reason I like the metal hills for this scale is that moving the figures with my fat fingers, if I do hit the scenery, it stays in place. With my Peter Laings, foams hills are a good idea. I like my Heroscape, but still would like to go more traditional.

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  3. Hills are something that I find a constant challenge. Sculpted hills look great, but are not practical, contoured hills work well, but multiple levels looks odd to me. Very small hills have a challenge of their own! I like the lead hill approach. My own grid is inch & half, so very similar. Working in this small scale, weight is important as the scenery moves about. I have been considering basing some items with a non-slip matting.

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  4. While walking my dog the other night, I found an interesting flat stone. It now has me thinking of other natural terrain, such as tree bark.

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    1. I have used tree bark as the basis for mounting my lead mountain pine trees. One can paint and drybrush the bark: I don't bother. The natural wood colour and grain looks pretty OK to me.

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    2. I never thought of using bark for tree bases. That's what I do like about this hobby, people share their ideas freely. I have started a small notebook that I jot any ideas into.

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