General Update

I haven't had a lot of time to work on things this past week. Life has just been way too busy. I did however eek out a little bit of time yesterday to fix/finish off the vibration table. I used some foam and springs to dampen the vibration and things seem to work wonderfully now! I'll have some pictures up soon as well as brief how-to.

I have also switched over to the glass method of scraping the tiles and let me tell you it makes a WORLD of difference. I found some already cut acrylic sheets at lowes for about $3 each that are just the right size for a mold. I picked up 5 of them and plan on getting about 10 more tonight!

I am also now doing a syrenge method instead of pouring from the sides. I bought a bottle that I can squeeze the plaster out of to do this, it isn't an actual syrenge. I plan on going to the restraunt supply store soon and picking up a few more bottles of different sizes depending how much plaster I am working with.

Also I have found that going with a 2 to 1 ratio of plaster to water by volume seems to work out fairly well for overall strength. Now to get to casting a bunch more bricks!!!

Ohh on another note my adsense account was disable because of invalid clicks! Not sure what that is about or how they determine that but I have now switched ad providers and will be looking at finding better ad networks for this blog in the future!

Review: Woodland Scenics Rocks

So in prepration of completing the ruined tower last night I picked up some woodland scenics rock mold. It has 3 rocks in it and appears to be made of some sort of rubber. My big problem with the mold is that it doesn't have a flat base. It makes it a little bit of a challenge to cast. I ended up resting the edges on a pair of 2x4s so that it would sit flat.

The details in the rocks are awesome though and will look great to add a little spice to the bases of the terrain. For 10 bucks you can't really go wrong. I will probably pick up a few more molds to add some more variation to the rocks.

http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/Item/C1234/page/1

Shopping list for the day

Need to pick up some silicone baking mats from the restraunt supply store as well as more poly bins. I may also pick up some silicone RTV but will probably wait on that.

I have found that the baking mats make for a great worksurface cover. The plaster does not stick to them at all really which is really handy for cleaning. I want to get at least 2 more but maybe 3 or 4 to cover the areas where I do the casting and drying.

More poly bins required

I have 40 but probably will need close to 100 to sort all of these blocks.

Mixing Bowls

I need to find a set of Silicone Mixing Bowls. 2 or 3 should be good and 3qts should be plenty big enough. I am looking at trying to cast 18 molds in a single go maybe more... If you have any suggestions please leave a comment below!!!

They are here!!!

The new molds I ordered the other day are here. This will fill out my collection nicely and give me a lot more flexiblity in my projects. I can't wait to start casting them tonight!!!

Casting and Taxes

So I have to finish off my State and Federal taxes tonight... blarg... I hate doing taxes. I wonder how many casts I can get done while doing my taxes though. I did about 8 over the weekend. Far short of the 40 I need to get done. I also may need to order more merlins magic to complete the project. I think I will get a larger quantity of it this time... I do enjoy the casting. I am Also thinking about getting a few silicone cups for mixing the plaster.

Hirst Molds Wish List

I am constantly looking at the molds trying to determine which ones to get next. So far I think my list looks like this.

#53 http://hirstarts.com/bridge/bridge.html
#60 http://hirstarts.com/pristowr/pristowr.html
#61 http://hirstarts.com/turret/turret.html
#64 http://hirstarts.com/round/round.html
#65 http://hirstarts.com/ruin/ruin.html
#203 Cracked Floor Tiles
#205 Gothic Floor Tiles
#206 Worn Floor Tiles
#235 Gothic Roof Mold
#245 Slate Shingle Roof Mold
#250 Small Brick Mold
#41 http://hirstarts.com/tips15/tips15.html#41
#42 http://hirstarts.com/tips15/tips15.html#42
#43 http://hirstarts.com/tips15/tips15.html#43
#44 http://hirstarts.com/tips15/tips15.html#44
#54 http://hirstarts.com/church/church.html
#55 Bell Tower
#200 http://hirstarts.com/tips/tips.html#wall

As you can see that is about 20 different molds... That is a pretty penny if I were to try and get them all at once. So I definately need to break it down a bit. I was hoping to be able to get 5 at a time but I am not sure if I will be able to do that. So my thought is to break it down based on what goes together and versatility. If a single mold lets me make a cool terrain piece it gets higher priority. I want to make sure I am getting at least 2 molds at a time so here is how I think I will break them down by pairs.

#53, #60
#61, #206
#64, #200
#55, #41
#54, #235

Obviously this doesn't cover all the floor tiles and accesory molds I want however this would give me a total of 8 different hirst arts designed projects to make (including the 2 I already have) and allow me to work on a bunch of pieces for Minas Tirith. I just hope that once I make some of these projects I can sell them for a decent price to be able to afford more molds and tools.

Casting Update

So last night I finished off the vibration/shaker table for casting. Woot Woot!!! So this morning I ran down to the post office and picked up the Merlins Magic that I ordered. Post office was busy and taking forever as I figured it would. It really is no wonder why they are bankrupt! Anyway that is another topic for discussion. The first thing that I realize about the merlins magic is that it has about 1/3rd the volume that an equivelent weight bag of plaster has. I probably should have realized this sooner sinse it cures denser then standard plaster but I didn't. That means my original estimate of 7 times more expensive then plaster just sky rocketed to 20-30 times more expensive!!! This may not be workable for Minas Tirith and only cost effective on smaller projects.

On a side note, when I was assembeling the table last night I used a spray adhesive to help bond the layers of the table top. I didn't realize how close my phone was to the spray and apparently it got quite a bit of overspray on it... Now the screen is all grimey :( Fortunately I have a screen protector film on it so I should be able to just take that off and be good to go!!!

Next Molds

So needless to say I am impressed with the hirst arts molds. I want more of them... heck I want all of them but that will take time. Time to plan my next purchase though. I want to get a 5 mold set so I only have to pay the $7 shipping once for all 5 molds. On top of that you get a 10% discount if you order 5 molds at once!!! Score.

So here are the molds I am looking at:

1) #40 Basic Block Mold
2) #55 Bell Tower Mold
3) #54 Gothic Church Mold
4) #235 Gothic Roof Mold
5) #201 Floor Tiles

This will give me the capability to build the bell tower plan and the church plan with the roof. They will also allow me to start work on the main building of the Citadel as well as the white tower. The citadel will need a couple other molds in order to be complete. I also may start work on some of the outer wall sections.

In order to help raise money for this project and for the terrain projects in general, I have decided to setup an etsy shop and auction things on ebay. I will be taking my time on this terrain and will probably fully paint it. Some of it will likely be custom designs as well. I already have some plans in my head about making a nice center keep at about 2ftx2ft. We will see how this goes.