school castle project
LondonCalling
term break. They have to build a castle !!
Somehow bringing in his warhammer one , or one of the zvezda/airfix ones may
result in cries of "cheating". So at last I'm going to put my
scratchbuilding skills painfully amassed thru' years of reading mags, but
just never put into practice :)
I want to help him build something that we'll actually use to wargame with
after !!!
Looking for advice here, or maybe some simple plans.
I was thinking of something along the lines of 1/72 scale.
Hardboard base, with one of these railway scenic mats to cover it.
Recomm for a good supplier of those mats, railway firm or "one of our own "
wargames firms ?
Or maybe we should use a pva/sand mix - it's cheaper, but maybe not as
"pretty" ?
For the walls we could use card "boxes" or polystyrene (messy - no hot wire)
?. I can see a problem with building the crenelations though, advice here ?
So if any of you have documented any such project could you let me know ?
Must have been done a million times already !
many thanks
if this does come off well, I should put some notes together and stick it on
a site....
Tiziano
Robert Singers
> Well my 7 year old son was given a wonderful bit of homework for his mid
> term break. They have to build a castle !!
>
> Somehow bringing in his warhammer one , or one of the zvezda/airfix ones
may
> result in cries of "cheating". So at last I'm going to put my
> scratchbuilding skills painfully amassed thru' years of reading mags, but
> just never put into practice :)
>
> I want to help him build something that we'll actually use to wargame with
> after !!!
There's only one thing for it and that is to go here
http://www.hirstarts.com/index.html and spend spend spend.
Andy O'Neill
Do the crennellations as machicolations as well and they can stick out.
Use 4mil foam board for these, you could cut loads of matchsticks or
bits of 3mil foamboard to offset from the wall, but I'd not bother.
Pollyfilla the gap between the foamboard card in....
Cut holes in the polystyrene and put card over ( with the bits cut out )
for arrow slits.
Fill with pollyfilla.
You could get fancy and cut a glacis ( if that's the right word ) the
sloping fillet on the base of walls.
Put it all on a double base of extruded polystyrene and MDF under it..
and you could have a moat.
Cut squared bits of thin card and PVA in patches to the stonework.
Emulsion, sprinkle lightly with fairly fine sand whilst wet and repeat a
couple of times.
You want square turrets - although it's possible to bend card round and
or cork tile and build something up, square is much easier.
Bevel the edges and cover with paper or thin card... PVA together.
Cut extruded polystyrene/blueboard with a kitchen devil knife.
For foam board you want a good sharp blade in a craft knife, preferably
scalpel.
Early machicolations and even tops of castles were often wood. The
first bunch of motte & bailley norman castles were wood an all...
Balsa for this.
Something to consider to be different?
The next stage could be a stone tower with wooden walls around, on a
raised bit.
Andy O'Neill
www.l-25.demon.co.uk/index.htm
LondonCalling
illustrated in WI a few times recently. Added plus is that they were
plastered and whitewashed, so no awkward stonework to make !
It would be nice to make something that wasn't 4/6 square towers in a
rectangle!
I think the moat shouldn't be too difficult. I know people have poured resin
to resemble water, sounds messy, alternatives ??
Still haven't found any blueboard, I checked Wickes and B&Q.....
Tiziano
ps Robert, the Hirst moulds are high on my list however way too much work
for a one week project, unless you use ther plans, there's a lot of design
work to do !!! :)
"Andy O'Neill" <An...@l-25.dont-spam-me.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
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Pockets
the textured cealing paste that decorated our homes in the 70's and 80's,
actualy its the same stuff!)
PVA glue may help seal the poly if your concerned about melting it (as can
happen with some paints). Go for a castle with an interesting lay out, or a
simple generic one (lower mote area surronded by a ditch, wall and ancillary
buildings, and a keep/dongeon on a baily hill adjacent to it).
Polystyrene? Any one you know bought some electrical gear lately?
Hot Knife/other tools. If your in London (by you name Take it to be so), I
recommend the Model Shop (Harrow on the hill) though leave the credit card
at home! You could have a nasty attack of the spendfest!
Textured cealing paste, Local Wilkinsons or el cheepo DIY store.
Hope that helps
"LondonCalling" <tiziano...@bt.com> wrote in message
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Jimi
My very first castle project had me using polystyrene 'bricks' approx 8"
long by 4" wide by 4" deep. I used the bricks on their long side for walls
and stood them up on end to create the towers. Crenallations were created
from scrap foam core. Everything was PVA glued and mounted on a scrap MDF
base.
Took me a couple of hours to make, including a generous application of
textured paint to make it look 'ok'.
Jimi
Bazarov1
instructions for building a simple castle out of foam rings (used for floral
wreaths). I think it was called a "ring fort" or a "ring keep."
The project was also for school.
Ring a bell for anyone?
David A. Sanders
the main part of the wall, but glue a piece of foamcore to the front of it.
Knife cut the crenellations (probably before the gluing).
I would recommend square tower, unless you have some large cylinders lying
around.
For roofing material, use matte board for square stuff, and paper cones for
the round. Crenellations on the round towers could be more than you really
want to get into.
Check out Terragenesis.com for ideas. most are simple. They also have a
simple way of doing the water in a wet moat.
David Sanders
"LondonCalling" <tiziano...@bt.com> wrote in message
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Craftybstd
>I would recommend square tower, unless you have some large cylinders lying
>around.
The scratch-built castles that I have seen have used old Quaker Oats boxes for
the towers (usually 25 mm scale.) They work real well.
Russ Craft
Tom Bryant
LondonCalling wrote:
>
> Thanks Andy, I was considering a motte and bailey, there's been a good one
> illustrated in WI a few times recently. Added plus is that they were
> plastered and whitewashed, so no awkward stonework to make !
>
> It would be nice to make something that wasn't 4/6 square towers in a
> rectangle!
>
> I think the moat shouldn't be too difficult. I know people have poured resin
> to resemble water, sounds messy, alternatives ??
>
> Still haven't found any blueboard, I checked Wickes and B&Q.....
>
> Tiziano
>
> ps Robert, the Hirst moulds are high on my list however way too much work
> for a one week project, unless you use ther plans, there's a lot of design
> work to do !!! :)
You might also want to check with other home centers as well. Also if
there is any building going on in your neighborhood you might want to
see if they have any scrap available. I need to walk around the block to
a construction site for some scrap 1/4 inch insulation board for some
work on Guadalcanal and Savo islands for a naval game I'm doing. The
stuff works really nice. Even the "expanded" polystyrene is ok.
Hot wire cutters are available at most hobby and craft stores quite
cheaply. The cheap ones are battery operated and work quite nicely. A
soldering iron also is handy for marking out the lines of the bricks.
You can cut out tower segments in small block segments to build 10 or 12
sided rings. By shortening the length of the segments gradually you can
put a slight taper to the towers if you wish or build them straight up.
By rotating each ring as it goes on you could add a rough built "bricky"
look to the whole thing. You can cut crenelations with a standard knife,
hot knife drywall saw or any sharp object. Paint with some texture
paint, or if you have coarse sand and some cheap acrylic paint, you can
make your own.
Tom Bryant
President, HMGS-GL
MltryHstrn
Last year two of my junior high school ninth graders constructed a late
medieval castle for a project. The walls were constructed of foam core over
which they laid randomly placed "stone" made of card stock to create the
illusion of three dimensionality. The whole thing was give a was of spackle
that was cut with a bit of water. They built hexagonal gate towers and built
curtain wall towers from a piece of carpet roll they were able to get from a
rug dealer in town. Quaker Oat container would have worked, too. The whole
thing was painted a light gray to reflect a castle that had been under seige
and whose white wash had deteriorated. All in all a very nice project. The day
of the faire we were doing saw the boys borrow some of my Feudal figures and
stage a demo of what an assault on the castle might have involved.
Regards,
Jerry
Steve H.
> Well my 7 year old son was given a wonderful bit of homework for his mid
> term break. They have to build a castle !!
>
...interesting, my 6 year old (almost 7) also started talking to me the other
day about motte and bailie castles - they've also been making and painting
shields - perhaps as an introduction to herladry. Looks like it may be in the
national curriculum if your sprog is doing it as well.. ...hope she gets some
homework as well..... :o))
Steve H.
--
(spam proofing: remove the *'s in the id. above when replying by email)
IBM UK Wargame Club page:
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Cave/5647/index.html
My web page: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Cave/5647/steve.html
Andy O'Neill
<tiziano...@bt.com> writes
>I think the moat shouldn't be too difficult. I know people have poured resin
>to resemble water, sounds messy, alternatives ??
You got to be careful with the exothermic reaction of most resins.
Acrylic gel is worth thinking about.
But you can get away with a pretty thin layer - a few mils - over flat.
Add a little acrylic paint for colour.
>Still haven't found any blueboard, I checked Wickes and B&Q.....
You need a specialist sort of builders merchant.
Look em up in the yellow pages and phone round.
If you know anyone's a builder ask them and maybe you could talk em into
picking em up for you at trade price.
It's wall or ceiling insulation to some companies - it can be yellow or
pink. Usually 1" or 2" thick.
Some places you need to buy a pack of 5 2'by4' sheets, others they'll
split em but I think they're about 7 or 8 quid or thereabouts each.
The crenellations BTW...
Cut strips, cut them to one short and one longer length.... glue side by
side. Easier than hacking out bits, you can also chamfer the ends of
the short bit easy.
This is also a method to think about when doing buildings generally -
for windows and doors.
Andy O'Neill
www.l-25.demon.co.uk/index.htm
Carl Vandevender
You can make it as
elaborate as you want. They have a lot of other good looking paper models.
Carl
LondonCalling
wait..... isn't that a book on the very subject lying on my book shelf :)
Tiziano
"Steve H." <shi...@emea.att.com> wrote in message
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Demefergus
>Subject: Re: school castle project
>From: Andy O'Neill <An...@l-25.dont-spam-me.demon.co.uk>
>Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:43:00 +0000
>In article <a36flf$mig$1...@pheidippides.axion.bt.co.uk>, LondonCalling
<tiziano...@bt.com> writes
>>I think the moat shouldn't be too difficult. I know people have poured resin
to resemble water, sounds messy, alternatives ??
>You got to be careful with the exothermic reaction of most resins.
>Acrylic gel is worth thinking about.
>But you can get away with a pretty thin layer - a few mils - over flat.
>Add a little acrylic paint for colour.
Easy way to produce acceptable 'water hazards':
1 - apply coat of metallic silver paint, let dry
2 - cover with Phthalocyanine Blue or Phthalocyanine Green artist's acrylics.
These are translucent pigments. If you apply a blob of each to a pallette, and
apply a thin 'wet' coat of 'blue here green there a mix of both in between',
over the silver, it looks, IMHO, pretty good.
>>Still haven't found any blueboard, I checked Wickes and B&Q.....
>You need a specialist sort of builders merchant.
>Look em up in the yellow pages and phone round.
>If you know anyone's a builder ask them and maybe you could talk em into
picking em up for you at trade price.
>It's wall or ceiling insulation to some companies - it can be yellow or
pink. Usually 1" or 2" thick.
>Some places you need to buy a pack of 5 2'by4' sheets, others they'll
split em but I think they're about 7 or 8 quid or thereabouts each.
In the USA, you'd want "Owens-Corning Foamular 250 Extruded Polystyrene
Insulation Board", and a 2 ft x 6 ft sheet, 1 inch thick, bright pink color,
would run you about 6 dollars at Home Depot. Methinks Owens-Corning has a
website at which tech details can be found. Sorry I've no clue what British
equivalent is.
Hope these are of some help
Yours, John Desmond - john.a.desmond.cgs80 AT alumni.upenn.edu
Tony Charles
to be represented, various shades of blue/green), and when dry cover with a
couple of coats of varnish. looks a treat.(typically I use a satin finish,
but the preference is yours.)
Tony
Demefergus <demef...@aol.comzyzyzyg> wrote in message
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LondonCalling
garage, somewhere.....
"Tony Charles" <to...@tonycharles.net> wrote in message
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Andy O'Neill
<tiziano...@bt.com> writes
>I think this varnish option sounds easy, especially as I have a pot in the
>garage, somewhere.....
Dark brown base... ensure as level as possible.
Four or 5 coats of floor varnish with streaks of brown on like the 2nd
and third..
Drop some bits in as floating debris and or weeds.
Let this dry somewhere dust free or minimal dust and no insects seeing
as the little blighters just love shiny goo.
You could of course add a mil of clear by using clear plasticard painted
dark brown on the underside as a base.
Under no circumstances give into the temptation to pour in a thick layer
of varnish as it will never dry.
Someone told me they just put an open bottle of johnsons klear on a
radiator shelf for a few days to produce acrylic gel.
Sisal ( hairy ) string can be used for long grass embedded on the edge.
If you dip the end in PVA, then flour or very thin sand and let it dry a
couple of times, you can make a reed. You want these to start way too
long though in order to give you something to hold onto as you faff
about.
Andy O'Neill
www.l-25.demon.co.uk/index.htm
Tom Bryant
flourecent lights in the house or any of the plastic grille covering
used for them this makes an excellent water effect. You will need the
"cracked ice" style. You can find these in the lighting area of your
home centers. Paint the FLAT side of this as a blue and voila, instant
water. Cutting it can be a royal pain but it looks like wavy water. I
saw this done last year at a con and I'd like to replicate it for my
nautical terrain boards.
Tom Bryant
President, HMGS-GL