Terrain Pillars - First Cast and Moulds Available

As previously discussed I set abotu doing a Mk. II Pillar. The Mk. I was used to try out the Zone Mortalis rule set.

Mk. II is an improved design. I was able to do the first couple of casts today and the end result is a much easier casting process and a higher quality of cast.

The Mk. II Pillar Master

Comparison shot of the Mk II and Mk. I casts.
The difference in quality is easily shown.

As I cast two pillars I was able to slot some walls and doos in place to see how things fit together:

Walls in slotted into the outer grooves

Militiaman Bob showing the height of the pillars (70mm)

A door slotted into the central groove

So the design is much improved, so much simpler to cast than the orginal. I didn't use any form of vibrating table or other casting aid and I still only got a few small air bubbles. (Note: the two casts shown have not had their bases cleaned up, hence the rough looking edges).

The pillars are still meant more as a means to allow a quick, easy and relatively cheap modular board to be built. Unlik the Mk. I design though these have a much nicer finish so have a more permanent role, the former design was more obviously a stop gap to a permanent board being built.

Here is a shot taken from the test games I played of Zone Mortalis to show the idea of the pillars being used to put together boards:

Now to be able to put together a full board something in the region of 30-50 pillars are needed depending on the size of the board and the balance between rooms and corridors you use. The cost of plaster (approx £25 for 10kg) means that even with that many casts and the cost of the mould(s) themselves a board can be assembled within a reasonable amount.

The walls are made from 1mm card while the doors are 3mm Finnboard. The grooves in the pillars are .5mm over this size, so there is some leeway to the size you use.

So are you interested in purchasing one or two moulds?

The moulds weigh in the region of 400g which is a fair amount of rubber. This combined with the amount of time it takes to do the moulds I have decided on a price of £30 for one mould, or £55 for two moulds.

I will do a test cast with each mould to ensure the mould is ok. If there is a problem which means the casts are unusable (e.g. an air bubble here and there in the mould will be passed as ok) it will be scrapped and a new mould done in its place.

I recommend having two as it will dramatically speed up casting time, but if you have time to play with one will obviously do.

So to summarise:

£30 for one pillar mould + postage at cost.
£55 for two pillar moulds + postage at cost.

Time wise I will be doing any moulds to order, as such it will take a few days as a minimum before postage as each mould must be left 24 hours before the master can be removed. Also as each mould uses a fair amount of rubber I cannot gaurantee I will have enough at any particular time to do an order so an additional week may be required for new rubber to arrive.

If you are interested drop me an email...

rictusrd-blog (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk