Monday 21 March 2011

Model Making: Laser Cut Fortified Tower House

After playing around with the various sci-fi fortifications and gantry systems I felt it was about time that I tried something a little more historical.

A friend of mine suggested I have a look at doing a Peel Tower and so after a little time doing some research (i.e. Google-fu) I settled on creating a tower based on the Tower of Hallbar. Not an accurate historical model, but taking the main points of the building and incorporating them into my design.

The Tower of Hallbar. This Tower House was bui...

The following photos are the result. The model is built for 28mm figures and stands around 370mm high.

 

Peel Tower 1Peel Tower 2

As part of the project it was important to hide the way the model was constructed, fortunately with the larger stones at the corners, it was possible to create an interlocking design that gave the model great strength as well as reasonably hiding the joins.

Peel Tower 5Peel Tower 4Peel Tower 6

The actual stonework on the faces of each wall was created simply by drawing white splodges on a black background to create a very simple stone built effect. This was then repeated over the surface of each piece. The laser engraving of the stone pattern was a very slow process. The whole cutting and engraving took between 3 and 4 hours. If I removed the surface engraving, it would bring it down to around 30 minutes.

Peel Tower 7Peel Tower 3

In these photos you can see that the roof tiles are actually sloped for each row of tiles. This was done by creating a black to white gradient for each row of tiles. Then using a special 3D setting on the laser cutter that cuts to certain depths depending on the different gradients of black through grey to white.

DSCN2296DSCN2297

After I completed the basic tower I decided it would be interesting to a small turret, as seen on several other Peel towers. Now, the problem here is that the laser cutter will only cut flat material. All I could do was cut each ring of bricks as a separate piece and then glue them together. It worked well enough, but I wouldn’t want to have to do it for a turret that was the full height of the building…

Now clearly this model has quite diverse uses, everything from Boarder Reivers games through to fantasy battles and beyond. However the main problem with producing this tower as a saleable item is the time it takes on the machine. The stone effect is very nice, but it simply makes the model uneconomic to produce.

16 comments:

  1. A very nice looking building...pity it cannot be mass produced.
    Cheers
    paul

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  2. It could be mass produced, I would simply have to remove the stone texture from it.

    Not quite the same effect but it would bring the production cost down considerably...

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  3. Could you mass produce the tower with merely etched stone detail? Which is to say, not cut deeply, but merely enough to give some texture for painting and inking.

    In any case, that is a lovely building.

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  4. Unfortunately whether lightly etched or deeply etched is a matter of the lasers power setting, not it's speed. It would probably be exactly the same speed either way!

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  5. Absolutely amazing, and something I definitely want to do. Posted a query on your TMP thread regarding the hardware and software you use.

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  6. It's a top model and I think you're selling short if you don't hint at a price for the time on the cutter, etc. Kind of said so on the LAF thread too.

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  7. Could you make a pattern available for others to use? I would like to try this on my laser

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    Replies
    1. I am investigating ways of making my models available as kits at the moment, so I can't release the design at the moment.

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  8. Did this ever make it to production? Oh & I think it's great.

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    Replies
    1. Fabio, I haven't yet. I will have a chat with Ian at Fenris Games and see if he thinks it is feasable...

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  9. VERY nice model! Any luck getting it produced yet?

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  10. I'd like one too! A roundabout price estimate would be nice, and maybe you'd be surprised at how many takers you'd get.

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    Replies
    1. I have sold a few. The price is £50 plus shipping. The weight is just under a kilo, so it is not cheap to ship outside the UK...

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    2. Hi David
      I would be interested in one of these tower kits...is there a way to contact you and organise buying one from you?
      I live just outside Edinburgh so no overseas postage.
      Thanks Neil

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    3. Neil, Drop me an email at ironmammoth AT gmail DOT com and I will sort it out for you...

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    4. Thanks David
      Have sent you an email
      Cheers Neil

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