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JEEVES420 posted:can you elaborate more on the process? It looks like you have a vacuum setup with the wires and what not Ha, no, that's just my ghettofantastic vibrating table. It's a bass shaker bolted to a piece of plexi, and hooked up to the amp from an old computer speaker. I plug that in to my phone and use a tone generator set to a frequency I've found seems to resonate well (in this case, 35hz.) Works incredibly well: rapping the mold with the scraper handle worked, but with this, I turn it on while I spoon plaster in to the reservoirs and I can keep my plaster nice and thick because if I just barely touch the spoon to the vibrating mold, it sheets off in very controllable amounts with great precision, almost no slop until I want to overfill them at the end. I leave it running for about a minute and you can see hundreds of teeny tiny bubbles popping all over the surface as they percolate up. Ravendas posted:You get 10 per fieldstone mold? Gothic is 7 tiles per mold, plus some triangular pieces to help make up for the difference, which doesn't.  The only parts from that I don't need are the two small ones in the upper left corner of that pic (upper right corner of the mold in my original photo.) They're so tiny I've been filling them anyhow and banking them for who knows what. Ravendas posted:That was the first thing to prompt me to make my own custom molds. So now I have a mold that casts three 2x2 tiles, a 2x4, a 1x4, and two 2x1. That's 28 square inches of tiles already in convenient dungeon making shapes, compared to the 7 individual pieces from the original mold. Yeah, I'm actually in the process of working towards that. I wasn't sure if I'd be sufficiently happy with the molding material from hobby lobby, it's a pretty limited selection. I emailed Bruce Hirst and asked what he uses, and while he wouldn't tell me his actual product/recipe, he said MoldMax 30 from Smooth-On is really close. It's $30 for a quart of that, which isn't too outrageous and I would expect the mold to last comparably to the originals. I'd really like to make monolithic floor pieces for the scenery pieces I'm making, so like a bunch of 2x2s, some 2x3s, that sort of thing. Also, for the walls, I'd like a mold that did, say, half a dozen 2x1/2x1/2 wall segments, that'd speed things up tremendously because I'll need a ton of those and the mold I have only does one or two at a whack. That's mostly why I'm only doing floors right now: the mold I have is almost right on for what I need, and while I do those, I can work on making my own for the upcoming walls project. e: Stopped casting for the night at 180 floor tiles. 32 to go, I'll be able to finish them out tomorrow while I idle between meetings for work and such. 
Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Nov 21, 2013 |
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Nov 21, 2013 04:54
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JEEVES420 posted:can you elaborate more on the process? It looks like you have a vacuum setup with the wires and what not It would appear he has a speaker or something set up under the glass to shake the mold.
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Nov 21, 2013 05:50
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Bad Munki posted:Ha, no, that's just my ghettofantastic vibrating table. It's a bass shaker bolted to a piece of plexi, and hooked up to the amp from an old computer speaker. I plug that in to my phone and use a tone generator set to a frequency I've found seems to resonate well (in this case, 35hz.) Works incredibly well: rapping the mold with the scraper handle worked, but with this, I turn it on while I spoon plaster in to the reservoirs and I can keep my plaster nice and thick because if I just barely touch the spoon to the vibrating mold, it sheets off in very controllable amounts with great precision, almost no slop until I want to overfill them at the end. I leave it running for about a minute and you can see hundreds of teeny tiny bubbles popping all over the surface as they percolate up. This sounds great. Would that work with resin do you think?
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Nov 21, 2013 09:21
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ineptmule posted:This sounds great. (because he uses a speaker and frequency generator)  I haven't tried much casting yet compared to you lot, but when I do I set a cheap ultrasonic cleaner on top of the mold or next to it (with the mold and cleaner resting on a sheet of balsa ply that is in turn resting on Lego blocks at either end, to really get the vibrations going. Like this: code:
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Nov 21, 2013 12:30
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Bad Munki posted:Ha, no, that's just my ghettofantastic vibrating table. It's a bass shaker bolted to a piece of plexi, and hooked up to the amp from an old computer speaker. I plug that in to my phone and use a tone generator set to a frequency I've found seems to resonate well (in this case, 35hz.) Works incredibly well: rapping the mold with the scraper handle worked, but with this, I turn it on while I spoon plaster in to the reservoirs and I can keep my plaster nice and thick because if I just barely touch the spoon to the vibrating mold, it sheets off in very controllable amounts with great precision, almost no slop until I want to overfill them at the end. I leave it running for about a minute and you can see hundreds of teeny tiny bubbles popping all over the surface as they percolate up.
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Nov 21, 2013 14:41
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There's also this tutorial on the Hirst-arts page: http://www.hirstarts.com/casting/advanced.html#vibrate
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Nov 21, 2013 16:54
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So, I've been considering stepping up my pink foam game, and have been looking at Hot Wire Foam Factory's products. Anyone have any experiences with them? Specifically, I'm looking at the freeehand router and one of the scroll saw tables. Also, does the variable heat power source make sense if you're not planning on doing engraving with it? I don't see why I'd want it cooler unless I was doing fine detail work. Any advice is appreciated!
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Nov 21, 2013 17:20
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I own one, but I've never taken it out of the box - I picked it up super cheap on Ebay from the manufacturer. (If you're in the US, you might be interested in this, by the way.) I believe that the variable supply is there for engraving, like you said, but different foams have different melting points. Maybe for that?
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Nov 21, 2013 19:19
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I've made up the shape for the base of the crane from cork and milliput. And added ladders (at last!) and struts to the crane.  Next step is rivets, lots of rivets.
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Nov 21, 2013 19:31
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berzerkmonkey posted:Instructions please. This looks like it would be great for my larger resin molds that won't fit into the pressure pot. Step 1: Find an old set of computer speakers. You can probably source these for free, you don't need much. Usually one of the two speakers will have the audio input, power, and volume knobs. That's the only one you really need. Here's what I have left of mine, it's just the back of the housing:  Step 2: Tell that speaker's guts to  You should find inside a small board with the power and volume on it. The main power cable should go out through the back, you can cut that for ease of pulling everything out. There should also be a couple wires that go to the actual speaker in this housing, cut that speaker off but keep as much of the wire coming off the board as you can. There should also be some wires that went to a connector for audio input (white-jacketed below). Here's what came out of mine: Amp/control board:  Transformer:  Step 3: Reconnect the power supply. Remember we clipped the power cord to the transformer so we could pull it out? Gotta fix that. Strip the end of the power cord and use a couple wire nuts to connect it back onto the transformer. Better yet, solder it and put some heat shrink on the join. Polarity doesn't matter here since it's AC.  Step 4: Connect the input. Find the wires that used to go to the input plug in the back of the speaker. They should be a bundle of three fine wires jacketed together (the white jacket coming off the bottom of the board pictured below.) Find an old stereo mini extension cable, and clip the female end off. Strip the wires down, and hook them up to the input wires. Since these ones will be somewhat fine, you should really solder them:  Step 5: Connect the speaker. Find the two wires that went to the speaker in this housing. Connect those to our shaker/speaker/surface transducer (I think the first term is most correct here on account of the low frequency we'll be doing.) Again, soldering is always best.  Step 6: Mount the shaker. These things are meant to be mounted in a hole, but that won't work because we don't want a big hole in the surface for plaster to get on the shaker. So using a couple hole saws and some 1/2" mdf scrap you have in your garage, first cut out the larger diameter and then cut out the inner diameter, giving you a nice donut standoff to mount your speaker to.  Then, using a few screws, mount your standoff/shaker assembly to the underside of your surface, which is made of some scrap plexi you also had lying around. You'll have to drill through the plate to put the screws in, and you'll want to counter sink them just a little so the screws sit flush once installed. You might also be able to glue the standoff to the back of the plexi for a truly unbroken surface.  Step 7: Mount it all up. Not pictured because I'm lazy and haven't done this yet. I just have my plexi sheet sitting across a bit of 2x4 scrap under each end. You don't want to mount it too firmly, because you want the plexi sheet to be able to bounce a little like a trampoline. Step 7: Make some noise. Download any of the countless tone generator apps for your phone or computer or whatever you have handy. Just plug that stereo mini plug into the headphone port, run the tone generator (I use my iPhone, works fine), find the right frequency, and go. The frequency will vary depending on the flexibility/size of the plexi sheet, the weight of the mold and casting material you put in it, etc. Just jimmy the frequency around until you find one that seems to resonate the most and causes the most vibrations. 35hz works pretty well for me. You want something low so it's more like a vibrator and less like a speaker. Since the shaker is so underpowered, you don't have to worry about damaging it, so you can crank the volume on your phone up, as well as the volume on the speaker control. That's really it. Yes, the shaker will be really underpowered on account of the lovely computer speakers we're using, but who cares? We're not worried about making nice sound, we just want something to vibrate. It works well enough, and at least in my case, I was able to build it entirely from scrap except for the shaker itself, which I found on amazon for like  e: Here's the shaker I used, looks like it's $18 now, but you can use that to spec one out and find it cheaper on ebay or wherever: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0045W10VW/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 If a person wanted to shake a larger mass, this same setup would probably still work fine, you'd likely just need to use a bigger amp to give the shaker a bit more oomph. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Nov 21, 2013 |
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Nov 21, 2013 20:26
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Germ posted:So, I've been considering stepping up my pink foam game, and have been looking at Hot Wire Foam Factory's products. Anyone have any experiences with them? Specifically, I'm looking at the freeehand router and one of the scroll saw tables. Also, does the variable heat power source make sense if you're not planning on doing engraving with it? I don't see why I'd want it cooler unless I was doing fine detail work. Any advice is appreciated! I like mine a lot. The variable temperature is for the variety of materials you use and for slowing down the melt for precision shape cutting. I do find myself wanting a little bit more temperature when I've got dense foam, or when I've forgotten to clean or change the wire in a while. If I ever have the room I'll do the table version or the big bow saw looking thing. I'm just not convinced I have much of a reason for the bow-saw. I have not done any market research lately so I can't say if there are any better products out there.
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Nov 21, 2013 21:37
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Pilgrimski posted:
If you don't have one already I'd suggest a 1/16 hole punch and plasticard. http://www2.fiskars.com/Shop-Products/Hand-Punches/1-16-Circle-Hand-Punch#.Uo6m48S-1Bk I keep one by my computer and anytime I'm waiting for a download or something I just punch some holes and build up my stockpile.
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Nov 22, 2013 01:38
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Making progress. Like I was planning and as was suggested, I'm going to have to make some new molds before I progress much further. The parts I need now just don't come out of these molds in the quantities and ratios I need. Also, I think what I might do is assemble a couple wall sections and cast those as one singular piece. It'll mean I'd only need to cast, say, 3 parts for a corner wall piece, instead of 9. It'll also mean fewer seams in the assembly, which makes for stronger set pieces. I'm traveling for the next week and a half, though, so I guess I'll have to put all of this on hold for a bit. I had such good momentum going, too! 
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Nov 22, 2013 05:55
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Bucnasti posted:If you don't have one already I'd suggest a 1/16 hole punch and plasticard. Thanks for the advice, but me and rivets are old friends. I tried tiny plastic rivets to stick on things but got tired of endlessly having them leap out of my fingers, get lost in the carpet or stick to the wrong thing.  I used a press mould for the green stuff rivets and a blunted punch for the ones you see on the plasticard. Just like the tool you linked, if you round of the punching pin to blunt its edges you can use the same tool to emboss plasticard rather than put holes in it. I learned it from here: http://www.ironhands.com/h2rivet.htm (Method 2, half way down)
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Nov 22, 2013 22:55
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I know this is the terrain megathread and all and it's very DIY but I can't help but plug this kickstarter for 2'x2' prefab interlocking game board squares. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/554355176/games-and-gears-battle-boards It's roughly 100 bucks including shipping to the US (sold in GBP) for six 2x2 squares of ground. Personally this is way better than I could do on my own and for less money, so I'm scrapping my plans for city terrain boards and just buying this and putting my time towards buildings instead. signalnoise fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 01:37
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Dat cobblestone 
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Nov 23, 2013 01:42
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The cobblestone is pretty embarrassing. The anime stuff, however, would make a nice interior board for Infinity. I backed it at the one 6x4 level, and a, going to see how things develop over the next month. They really should do something about that cobblestone, though.
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Nov 23, 2013 02:05
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I think they are, from near the bottom of the most recent updatequote:What we are working on: Edit: Yeah their account on Dakka specified they're redoing the straight road edges and cobblestones to make them more natural I'm in for the DZC board, to use with Robotech, and maybe one day DZC NTRabbit fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 02:19
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Is there an easy technique for doing lots of cobblestone that looks anything like cobblestone? I'm not going to let G&G crush my dreams of a 40's French city table.
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Nov 23, 2013 02:32
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Get some foam core, like the pink or blue stuff from Lowe's. Draw a bunch of circley-ovaly shapes on it of the size you want your stones. Cut along them with an exacto, just a few mm deep. Poke a dull pencil in there and run along the cuts, so it's crushing it down a little on either side of the cut as you follow the lines. Crush more for deeper/wider grooves, less for shallower/narrower ones.
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Nov 23, 2013 02:48
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Those boards seem to have almost no depth, which to me is the biggest reason for going with a board in the first place. You could get almost as good an effect with just a mat and scatter terrain.
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Nov 23, 2013 02:55
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Kinko's and a poster print.
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Nov 23, 2013 03:07
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moths posted:Is there an easy technique for doing lots of cobblestone that looks anything like cobblestone? I'm not going to let G&G crush my dreams of a 40's French city table. I've seen people glue down lentil seeds on foam before. So, that's an alternative.
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Nov 23, 2013 18:25
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Bad Munki posted:Get some foam core, like the pink or blue stuff from Lowe's. Draw a bunch of circley-ovaly shapes on it of the size you want your stones. Cut along them with an exacto, just a few mm deep. Poke a dull pencil in there and run along the cuts, so it's crushing it down a little on either side of the cut as you follow the lines. Crush more for deeper/wider grooves, less for shallower/narrower ones. You can also take a lovely old tank brush, rip out all the bristles and just press it into foam. It's good for uniform stone sizes, and saves a lot of time over xacto knifing everything.
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Nov 23, 2013 18:26
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Probably the pencil technique would work best, but it sounds like an insane amount of work and I've found foamboard be a little fragile for gaming. Specifically, putting something like this texture:  onto ~half of a 6x4 table would make me pull my eyes out. I've been browsing textured wallcoverings online and there's a number of pebble and stone-themed ones that could work , I'll check them out in person first. None have that cool arch pattern, but it's a small tradeoff if it means actually getting a project finished. (Or started  )
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Nov 23, 2013 19:07
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You can get cobblestone embossed styrene that fits the bill pretty well. I use Plastruct G-scale polished stone (item 91589) for 28mm scaled cobblestones. It's pricey ($5 per A4 sheet, IIRC) but really fits the bill. Durable, easy to lay down, etc. If you wanted to do large areas, it would be easy enough to make a mold of the pattern and cast a bunch of it in dental stone. I'd love to see someone make a roller you could use with clay. Something like this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:78252 EDIT: Aw hell, look for cake texturing things: http://www.globalsugarart.com/cobbl...c8856_a_7c20402
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Nov 23, 2013 20:25
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Ha! I actually bought a cake texture thing for a Super Dungeon Explorer project - the one I have looks really cartoony and wouldn't be very appropriate. But goddamn, that roller fits the bill nearly perfect. And the Plastruct sprues also look good - they're pricy but I think I could use them as the basis for kind of mold / imprint to do huge sections of table. Thanks! e: Oh hey this exists:  It's a $10 roll of cobblestone street for Christmas village decorations. It'll need a bit of touchup work, but I think that satisfies my cheap, easy, and durable requirements. I'll have to see what the scale looks like, there ought to be a few of these in the local crafts stores. moths fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 20:59
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I've worked on the base of my crane to provide ladders and more interesting textures. It still nicely holds the rest of the model up and dosen't have too much of a footprint.  I made up ladders out of the handle sprues and secured them to the platforms. The top part still rotates  The underside of the boom is now nicely detailed. There is still a big supporting chain and the winch cable itself to be installed.  And finally, as has become tradition, my sentry delaque for scale. This crane is big.  I'm satisfied it is finished now, ready for painting. I also finished up a few more platforms, these ones are based on the old Necromunda scenery.  Just as before, they are textured with plasticard, embossed rivets and resin hatches. 
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Nov 23, 2013 22:27
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moths posted:Ha! I actually bought a cake texture thing for a Super Dungeon Explorer project - the one I have looks really cartoony and wouldn't be very appropriate. And that cobblestone roller is pretty drat neat.
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Nov 24, 2013 01:17
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Pilgrimski, what brand/ scale of diamond plate do you use? I want some, but no one local carries it and I want to see it to assess scale before ordering it from an online retailer. Also, goons, the Christmas Village cobblestone mat reminds me... GET THEE TO DOLLAR TREE! If you've got one nearby, find their "cobblestone Creations" Christmas village line. They've got decent based pine trees (with snow or without snow) for one dollar per blister of two. Perfectly sized for 28mm wargames. They have white plastic rock-shaped bases that do well if you weight them (stick a coin or a washer on the bottom), are ready to go for a winter themed board, and could easily be painted for any other board. Cleaned out my local stores yesterday, and will be checking back in a week or two for a restock.
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Nov 24, 2013 02:40
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Every time I see the base of your crane I think you're making a crane cake on one of those TV baking shows, and I get hungry 
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Nov 24, 2013 03:00
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Is that crane going to have any cover on it, or any railings, or will it just be a death trap that everyone avoids? I've played tons of Necromunda, building all my own terrain. If I made anything tall, everyone would avoid it until some kind of cover or railing was added to a few parts of it. You don't need it all over, and you definitely don't want a foot high fortress, but that whole "If you're shot within 1 inch of an edge, take an initiative check to avoid falling" is brutal, especially falling from anything higher than 3". That's hitting the auto-ko levels of height.
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Nov 24, 2013 03:20
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moths posted:I'll have to see what the scale looks like, there ought to be a few of these in the local crafts stores. It's 2 3/8 inches wide by 16 1/2 inches long and scales well for flagstones in 40K land.
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Nov 24, 2013 04:00
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Germ posted:Pilgrimski, what brand/ scale of diamond plate do you use? I want some, but no one local carries it and I want to see it to assess scale before ordering it from an online retailer. The plasticard I use is made by Slaters Plastikard (https://slatersplastikard.com/plastikard/embossed.php) There's a flyer to show the scales - https://slatersplastikard.com/assets/pdfs/EmbossedFlyer.pdf The ones I used are a mixture of 1:25 and 1:50 single and double tread. Fear not Ravendas, your safety concerns will be addressed! There are magnets along the top of the boom to attach a railing and I have plenty of scatter terrain like barrels, crates and pallets to put on the other levels. NTRabbit posted:Every time I see the base of your crane I think you're making a crane cake on one of those TV baking shows, and I get hungry Sorry! Now I want cake... 
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Nov 24, 2013 04:07
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Ravendas posted:Is that crane going to have any cover on it, or any railings, or will it just be a death trap that everyone avoids? You can't have too much, in order to discourage people from sticking snipers up there and owning the battlefield. But a few bits of cover would be good!
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Nov 24, 2013 23:57
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Gaming table is coming along nicely      
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Nov 27, 2013 19:20
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I'm jealous. How do you plan on storing all of that? That's my big issue with Necromunda terrain...
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Nov 27, 2013 20:26
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berzerkmonkey posted:I'm jealous. How do you plan on storing all of that? That's my big issue with Necromunda terrain... Most of it dissasembles into flat pieces of plasticard and bulkheads with small bits of scatter terrain. I deliberately designed it like that to ape the old Necromunda scenery. Everything you see on the table fits in boxes inside two big shopping bags and at home it takes up about as much space as a standard GW army case. Things like the crane take up a bit more space, mostly I tend to leave it assembled on top of a bookcase. The assembly does mean it takes a while to set up, but I actually enjoy the Lego nature of it Now a request for help: I'm happy with the way my scenery shows decaying buildings and structures, but it is missing something. It looks used, but not lived in. For that I need some debris of civilisation. Posters, flyers, grafitti, rubbish (trash). The kinds of things you see in run down or busy parts of town. Has anyone come across anything like that? I know there are some 40k posters out there, but what about something more generic? Advice and links are most welcome!
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Nov 27, 2013 20:59
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Infinity has some stuff like holo-boards which are pretty neat. You can get newspapers and stuff through scale model sites and shops, like here, but you're probably going to have a tough time finding modern stuff versus WW2 era. If you do a GIS for "advertisement posters" you should get a lot of images that you can shrink to the appropriate size and use. My pick? 1950's advertising posters. Go all Fallout in your Necromunda. Graffiti is easy - just spray that poo poo on with an airbrush!
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Nov 27, 2013 21:14
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Pilgrimski posted:I'm happy with the way my scenery shows decaying buildings and structures, but it is missing something. It looks used, but not lived in. Once you get it all painted it's going to help more. The fact that it's not all painted helped me spot an aesthetic issue. The stuff folks interact with on a day to day basis are missing. If this is a construction site; lots of equipment and tools. If it's an industrial park, benches, trash cans a dumpster behind the building in the alley etc. (I now have to have to add that this is friggin awesome!)
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Nov 27, 2013 22:56
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