Cardboard Crazy

So, I've spend a few days knee-deep in glue and cardboard, trying to figure out some good template designs for walls and floors, and I think I'm making good progress. I've also gotten myself a new camera (well, another camera, it's actually a few years old), and once I've gotten around to learning how to use it, maybe I can get a better quality on the photos I take.

In the meantime, a few pics of a "floor" template:

For this floor I want something a little more interesting than "just" squares - while this isn't a "fancy" spaceship, that doesn't mean it can't have some detailing right? So I cut out some square designs from each 4x4 cm tile

I included this shot simply because cutting those squares was rather... mindnumbing, and to show it pre-glue. Still, that's part of a project like this, so no complaints.

Then I glued it onto the room I've chosen for it - making sure to apply an even layer of glue all over the cardboard piece before gluing it down. Eventually I'll drill little holes where each "tile" meets the other, and insert rivets, for the industrial look - I'll make sure to show that when I get around to purchasing some rivets.

A door design. This looks rather... bad this close up, and un-painted, but I think it'll work out fine in the end. My goal here was to get some templates I can use for each of the 24 doors. I'm considering making the "trim" around the edges wider though.

That's not to say that each door will be identical, but a good base to work from is key, and in my case, it sets creativity free, rather than restricting it.

Late Night Addendum:

I decided to do one more room today, this time with a different design - this is where all that time spent templating comes in useful, suddenly doing something like this becomes a breeze.

A little tip: Whenever I cut out parts of a cardboard piece, and especially if I need to remove a significant part of it, I always try to keep it in "one piece" for as long as possible - as soon as I remove parts, it starts to lose strength, and it becomes harder to cut it without tearing or bending it. As you can see in the above images, for this piece I did most of the cutting before "finishing" any of the triangle cut-outs.

And finished! Ah, but have you spotted it?

I was about 5 seconds from a major brainfart here. Due to the wall, 5mm needed to be cut off before gluing - while it's not impossible to remove after it's been glued, it would be a major pain in the ass. But I remembered just in time.. who says there's no suspense when making cardboard spaceships!

And glued in. Like the previous one, this one will be drilled and riveted, just for looks as the glue is more than enough to hold it in place.

Magnets. Always with the magnets.

Bonus points if you know the origin of the title of this post. I'm not exactly sure which kind of points, but go ahead and have a bunch of bonus ones!

So, my magnets arrived (3 days before the shipping estimate - I continue to be impressed by those guys!)
I wasted no time (okay a little, they're magnets, you have to play with them!) but then I promptly got down to business, drilling holes in the door, and the plate of board, and gluing in the magnets. I'm using a standard wood glue, and whether that'll turn out to be strong enough remains to be seen, I suppose. The door is upside down here, obviously:

I decided early on that I want to add cardboard on top of the main wooden plate, for easier detailing and added strength. Since the sheer number of pieces needed for this project is rather scary, I decided to make templates out of polystorene sheets (thin plastic), and then cut the needed shapes out of cardboard. The template, and resulting cutout, for the door frame looks like this:

I added a piece to the bottom of the door, mainly for detailing, but also to help keep the magnets in place - it may be because I was impatient, but on first try, I actually managed to pull the magnets out of the board after they were glued in, simply because they're that strong. Still, since they have to "work" through a couple of layers of cardboard + paint, they need a certain strength or it would be pointless.

 I also uploaded a little video to youtube, showing how the door works:

The rest of the templates I'll need, at least for the first room - I'll make them on a "when needed" basis. I've "pencilled" them to make the text stand out (for the benefit of the photographs really).

I then got down to some serious (if slightly mind-numbing) cutting of cardboard squares, so that I had enough for the first room. My plan is to finish the first room, then if all goes well, the first board section, and only then move on to the other board sections, so that I can benefit from the experience as I go along. Then, adding glue to the board - this may appear to be a lot of glue, but it turned out to be just about the right amount. I want the squares to "stick" on their entire surface, so I don't end up with loose corners!

First (and so far, only!) floor is complete, as far as cardboard is concerned at least:

I then went ahead and added some detailing, in the form of holes in the squares - when painted, it'll look decently like industrial flooring that is bolted down.

It's on purpose that the squares don't match up perfectly: this isn't the Emperor's flagship, it's a derelict, ancient alien-infested Spaceship after all.

Shopping Spree

I wanted to make the walls in balsa wood, but decided against it, mainly because it's simply hard to find in my area - and I'm talking within a 50 km radius! I didn't feel like purchasing online, since it's a fragile material, and quality can be all over the place. So it was back to the old DIY store for me, to purchase more wood, this time in the form of some 6 metres of panelling, clocking in at around 150 kr. (15£) and a "carpenter's square" for another 100 kr. (10£).

I also went a bit crazy and found an old, used table-size buzzsaw for the reasonable price of 200 kr. (20£), much to my neighbours' regret I'm sure, to help with cutting the walls and doors. It's not really necessary, but it was a decent price, so I decided to go for it, especially since I have already thought of several new projects I'll tackle when I eventually complete this Space Crusade board.

My final purchase (this time around) was a set of Super Magnets for the removable doors. I purchased mine at super-magnete.de*, since I'm in Europe and have dealt with them before, and was happy with the service. Crossing my fingers it'll be the same this time. There's 24 doors on the board(s), and I've decided I need 2 sets of 2 magnets for each. To be on the safe side, and because the more you order the cheaper they are, I went ahead and got 80 of each, for a grand total, including shipping, of 40€, roughly 300 kr. or 30£.

At this stage, I'm oiling up the buzz-saw before use, so the walls in the picture are actually hand-sawn, but I have made a trial-cut for one of the doors with it, and it seems to be working fine (it's rather noisy though, so I'll try and limit the use of it to when I need it).

The reason I'm rather meticulously writing down prices and expenses is that when I'm done, I'd like to be able to look back and see what kind of total cost we're looking at. At the current building rate, there's no way I'm going to remember if I don't write it down, so there we are! I also think it might be interesting to anyone wanting to do something similar themselves.

*no, I am not affiliated with these guys, nor do I get anything from plugging them!

Images of the first couple of walls, the buzzsaw, and the holes I've drilled for the magnets for the door below:

For those noticing the Magic: the Gathering cards: I play occasionally, but strictly "limited" only, and so I have loads of cards lying around that aren't worth the cardboard they're printed on - but that's exactly why I keep them: they're a good source of cardboard! I realize this is akin to blasphemy to many, but there you are.

Scumbag Camera pt. 2

just a few more images, same camera, so they still suck - will try to get some proper pictures up when I've actually finished a few models (these ware WIP)

Scumbag Camera

I decided to take a few snapshots (I'm almost inclined to label them snapsnots) of the minis I've done so far, but my much-lamented camera isn't really what you'd call "up to the task". Also, this is still a work in progress, but for what it's worth, here we go:

Got wood?

I haven't really done much of this sort of model-making before, so I wasn't sure what to use as a base. However I wanted it to be sturdy, reasonably light, and (since I'm building on a budget) not too expensive, so I settled on wood. I'm no carpenter (though my brother is!) so I'm not quite sure what the name of the specific type of wood is - since I got it from the left-overs bin at the local DIY market. I also got the plates cut to size (48x48 cm) there, and ended up paying 120 kr. (something like 12£, or 16-18 euro) for all 4 plates, which was reasonable to me.

I also picked up some other remedies I'd need, this was how my work table looked right before starting the actual work:

and then printed out a plan of each of the boards I was going to make, like so:

 and started mapping out a 4x4cm grid on the wooden boards, like so:

Then I mapped in where walls and door were supposed to go:

and did likewise for the second board:

and, as of the date of this post, that's where I am - hopefully I'll get further with it in the coming weeks/months, though like I stated in the beginning - I am not going to rush this :)

Dimension X (and Y, and Z)...

This is not a 3D blog, so I won't go into detail on how I did the 3D model - besides, it's not exactly hardcore modelling, as should be obvious. But I basically set up the four boards, put in the walls, and made a slideshow of setup of the twelve missions that are in the Mission Book.

The result can be seen in this YouTube video here: