I’ve decided to start building a Frostgrave gaming table. I’m thinking 3′ x 3′ and modular. Style wise I want it to look quite like Mordheim, that is lots of semi ruined medieval style multi level dwellings It’ll also be densely packed with narrow streets and corridors. Because it’s Frostgrave, it’ll obviously be winter themed, and contain a few set pieces like a wizards tower and a grave yard with crypt too.

That’s a lot to be getting on with, so for the sake of cost and fun I’ll be scratch building as much of this as I can. Now I’ve never really scratch built anything of note before so don’t go expecting a museum piece, but hopefully I’ll be able to produce something special.

So, lets begin: This afternoon my Hirst Arts cobblestone floor mould arrived, so I made myself little trip down to The Range (Thats like a cheap hobby/DIY/Homeware store in the UK) and bought some plaster of paris.

Hirst Arts have some great tips on their American site, so following this I mixed about a finger of water with two fingers of plaster (basically just enough plaster so that the water stops absorbing it, then a drop more water to get the last bit) and poured it into my mould.

I gave it 6 minutes before using a decorators slice to delicately scrape the top of the mould flat, then a further 25 minutes before I popped the plaster out of the mould, these were my results:

There were one or two holes and issues with the first casting, so I built myself a pounding board. This is basically two old MDF shelves glued together, braced by two strips of wood on the sides, and 4 pieces of kitchen sponge glued to the corners of the under side.

The gist is that when your steadily pouring your plaster into the mould (which is sat on your pounding board), you beat the board with your fists semi gently. This causes vibrations and small bubbles to rise to the surface of your freshly poured plaster and hopefully results in a cleaner, less hole ridden cast.

Here’s my pounding board:

These are the results of the “pounded” casting:

Over all much better, very few small holes. Although can you see it? One massive gaping hole roughly in the middle! No idea how that got there, I’ll just have to fill that bit with green stuff later I guess.

I need to make enough of these to cobble all my streets, so I’ve got tens more to make yet. I’ll be buggered if I’m going to do that today though – the pub calls 🙂