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What's the most preferred method of building a castle for modular games?

I was hoping to make resin molds to build wall sections. Than magnet lock them together. Would that be cost effective?

Thanks for your help.

What kind of budget

the processes of doing this may well cost quite a lot if making molds

You could probably make a bunch for cheap using insulation foam though it would be harder to magnetize without it tearing apart.

otherwise you could make a skellington out of mdf as hard points for magnets. then glue foam bricks onto it to make the castle.

3rd option would be to get a cheap 3d fdm printer and fiddle around with it but its more versatile in the long run if you learn it.

4th option is hirst molds and plaster.

Resin isn't cost effective on really big stuff.

What you can do is cast a thinner sheet of bricks/stone wall that you can then glue on a big piece of foam.

Basicly you want to keep big stuff hollow like any GW plastic vehicle. Big clumps of resin is really expensive.

How much castle wall are you talking about?

I haven't tried it, but I bet pink insulation foam with magnets tucked behind strips of styrene would do the trick. If I were to build any kind of modular wall sections for a whole table, that's how I'd go about it. Buy styrene strips to match the thickness of the foam, excavate little pockets for the magnets, mount the magnets to the strips, and glue the strips to the edges of the foam sheets. For full modularity you could mount three rows of magnets to each wall section so you could assemble them end-to-end or on either 90-degree. Detail the foam with a stylus for faux stone, mix up some textured paint, then ink and drybrush.

Whether you do foam, resin, or something else, consider that you'll have a polarity management issue... the simplest option I think is for each wall to have a dedicated "inside" and "outside" and corresponding north and south poles. Otherwise you could make yourself crazy trying to make your castle walls snap to each other only to have them repel.

If you made the mold, you might be better off with plaster or cheap filler from a DIY store for two advantages

1. It's cheaper and the mold can be reused just by washing it (If you do it with silicon)

2. It's ready to paint once it had dried and hardened and it's easy to repair with some 2 part epoxy or hot glue.

I'm not sure strength wise it would hold up but it should be ok if you're magnetizing it since you could store it all flat in a box), I'm planning to do a test with something similar to Pycrete with wood filler to see if it increases the strength of the part (Though i'm not holding my hopes out )

 Supershandy wrote:
If you made the mold, you might be better off with plaster or cheap filler from a DIY store for two advantages

1. It's cheaper and the mold can be reused just by washing it (If you do it with silicon)

2. It's ready to paint once it had dried and hardened and it's easy to repair with some 2 part epoxy or hot glue.

I'm not sure strength wise it would hold up but it should be ok if you're magnetizing it since you could store it all flat in a box), I'm planning to do a test with something similar to Pycrete with wood filler to see if it increases the strength of the part (Though i'm not holding my hopes out )

Let me know how that's going.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:
What kind of budget

the processes of doing this may well cost quite a lot if making molds

You could probably make a bunch for cheap using insulation foam though it would be harder to magnetize without it tearing apart.

otherwise you could make a skellington out of mdf as hard points for magnets. then glue foam bricks onto it to make the castle.

3rd option would be to get a cheap 3d fdm printer and fiddle around with it but its more versatile in the long run if you learn it.

4th option is hirst molds and plaster.

MDF? And Hirst plaster? Thanks.

I though pycrete was ice and saw dust.

it would be pretty hard to maintain a castle without a fridge

honestly depending on how many modular pieces you want to make this work, the silicon mold would be the expensive part. resin it self isnt super expensive (last i checked anyway)

Dental plaster or certain train scenic brands also work well.

you could probably filler a lot of it with junk and sprue if you are so inclined (a sprue rebar probably would help maybe and is better than throwing it out i suppose)

How about this. Foam Board and these bricks to make thiner walls, recast them to build hollow walls. So Wall section thin.. Rampart then other side with a brace in the center.

First take the brings glue them to the foambord remove the board once it's dry cast the wall once it's been filled and looks like a wall and connect them.

Tiny miniature bricks.

https://www.amazon.com/Pegasus-Hobby-Bricks-Diorama-Accessory/dp/B002EZF1XU#HLCXComparisonWidget_feature_div

It sounds like Hirst might be what you are looking for. You can buy the molds from them and build whatever you like. I know there are licensed companies that sell already cast items from them too.

http://www.hirstarts.com/

 Todosi wrote:
It sounds like Hirst might be what you are looking for. You can buy the molds from them and build whatever you like. I know there are licensed companies that sell already cast items from them too.

http://www.hirstarts.com/

I need to build a castle wall that can be recast. To make modularwall sections. Not paint already made castles.

What I honestly really need help with is how to... Step by step instructions on stacking stones,. Doing archways building ramparts. Conversion mathematics for 28mm height and scale. Should I use stones? Plastic bricks etc

 Desubot wrote:
I though pycrete was ice and saw dust.

it would be pretty hard to maintain a castle without a fridge

honestly depending on how many modular pieces you want to make this work, the silicon mold would be the expensive part. resin it self isnt super expensive (last i checked anyway)

Dental plaster or certain train scenic brands also work well.

you could probably filler a lot of it with junk and sprue if you are so inclined (a sprue rebar probably would help maybe and is better than throwing it out i suppose)

Haha, yeah I know, but the principal might work the same in the way that you use steel rods in concrete to give it strength.

But yeah, you could use the plastic sprues in place to do the same effect...just depends on the size of the walls?

Cocktail sticks? Matchsticks?

But depending on the size of the wall, the molds would get expensive very quickly using silicon.....how about that remeltable stuff in bead format that you just warm up and then mould?

If resin isn't being used and plaster to create the walls then there's no exothermic reaction to affect the mold.

I'm just spitballing here....

The Allfather wrote:

 Todosi wrote:
It sounds like Hirst might be what you are looking for. You can buy the molds from them and build whatever you like. I know there are licensed companies that sell already cast items from them too.

http://www.hirstarts.com/

I need to build a castle wall that can be recast. To make modularwall sections. Not paint already made castles.

What I honestly really need help with is how to... Step by step instructions on stacking stones,. Doing archways building ramparts. Conversion mathematics for 28mm height and scale. Should I use stones? Plastic bricks etc

You misunderstand. Hirst doesn’t make castles, they sell Molds for casting building blocks; typically done with dental plaster (stronger than plaster of paris) or resin.
http://www.hirstarts.com/how/how.html
http://www.hirstarts.com/molds/molds.html
They do provide starter plans, but think of the parts as Legos; build whatever you please.
http://www.hirstarts.com/plans/plans.html

Plaster is cheaper, but heavier and less damage resistant. Its brittler nature does make it easier to model realistic chipping. Resin is more durable, but it's more expensive and wears out the mold.

 Desubot wrote:
I though pycrete was ice and saw dust.

it would be pretty hard to maintain a castle without a fridge

Seeing how people tried to build aircraft carriers with it, one could do worse than wargaming terrain

 Supershandy wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
I though pycrete was ice and saw dust.

it would be pretty hard to maintain a castle without a fridge

honestly depending on how many modular pieces you want to make this work, the silicon mold would be the expensive part. resin it self isnt super expensive (last i checked anyway)

Dental plaster or certain train scenic brands also work well.

you could probably filler a lot of it with junk and sprue if you are so inclined (a sprue rebar probably would help maybe and is better than throwing it out i suppose)

Haha, yeah I know, but the principal might work the same in the way that you use steel rods in concrete to give it strength.

But yeah, you could use the plastic sprues in place to do the same effect...just depends on the size of the walls?

Cocktail sticks? Matchsticks?

But depending on the size of the wall, the molds would get expensive very quickly using silicon.....how about that remeltable stuff in bead format that you just warm up and then mould?

If resin isn't being used and plaster to create the walls then there's no exothermic reaction to affect the mold.

I'm just spitballing here....

There is a few ideas iv thrown around over the years. one that i still need to try is proto putty which is 100% silicon caulking plastisized with corn starch and food coloring. i really want to give it a try as a mold material (plan on working on that one soon) should be cheaper normal silicon mold materials.

otherwise iv also tried using potters clay as an impresson mold and it works pretty good for one off terrain pieces though you cannot cast resin as the moisture screws it up bad. plaster works though. (was making islands for the new defunct dystopian wars)

honestly though with walls non of these really work and it may just be more efficent to do a full one part silicon mold.