"More Cardstock-to-Chipboard buildings in progress..." Topic

I dug up my old TSR cardstock building PDF files, along with my old Mage Knight cardstock building PDF files. I printed out enough copies of the MK Towers 1 & 2, to build out three of each. I don't have any images of the finished Towers -- yet! LOL!

I hope to finish the first couple of models of these MK Towers this weekend. I printed using my color laser printer (some did not fully melt the toner into the paper, so there is some rattiness on some of them…). Here is one chipboard mostly covered in them, with some cut-outs from the previous chipboard piece -- I used it for TSR buildings, and the cut-offs were big enough to use for several pieces of the MK Towers.

The TSR PDF's feature an octagonal, 4-story tower, which is magnificent. Unfortunately, complex shapes, such as octagons, are challenging to fit together nicely. More to come later. Cheers!

I'd do the same! Looking forward to more pics.

I finished cutting out the MK Tower pieces. Did some calculations as to how many square dowels I need for building them out, adding them up to see how many square, 36" long, dowels I need for these buildings… Around 120", just for the MK Towers! I need a total of four dowels, plus another two or three, for the TSR buildings.

More photos will follow after I get the dowels cut up (need 4" lengths for the 3-story Towers, and 6" dowels for the 4-story Towers). Glad I installed a new blade on my bandsaw a few years ago, as I have a lot of cuts to make. LOL! Cheers!

Correction: there are two different MK Towers, but they are both only three stories tall, not four.

Now, on to a photo of a now OOP model set, Cities-on-the-Cheap. These are the same buildings (one on the far left is missing its chimney -- lost in the shuffle of cut-off's), but there are two colors of roofs to use with them.

I made more progress on one of the MK Towers, the one with the over-sized topper. The roof pieces for this model are complex, and though I found the instructions that have a photo of the completed models, I still can't see how they go together. Hoping to finish up all of the MK Towers this weekend.

I ran through my PDF building files, and I discovered several models from my Fat Dragon Games Basic Keep set, which I have never printed… Time to remedy that! One of them has stained glass windows, just different colored panels. It should work as a generic temple for my games. Cheers!

Some progress made over the weekend, and today. Finished models include: a Mage Knight Tower, four tiny houses (same as before, just more of them), and a second barn/stable building (same as the first, now I have two of them).

I am nearing completion on several more models. Some of which are: three MK bump-out top levels of towers (first two on the left, and the last one with the bump-out top attached, on the right), two straight-up three-level MK towers, and a generic temple building (far right of the photo) from FDG's Basic Keep Set (OOP, replaced by the Deluxe Keep Set).

In addition to these, I have: the MK Gatehouse (all sides, top exterior floor, and battlements printed, mounted on chipboard, cut out, and ready to be assembled), the TSR Octagon Tower (4-5 stories tall?), a TSR Huntsman's Hut (x2 models, conical roofs assembled, walls mounted to chipboard, cut out, and scored, ready to be assembled), and a few other sundry bits and bobs.

I am switching gears on the square wooden dowels: for the multi-faceted buildings (gatehouses, octagonal towers, and the octagonal Huntsman's Huts), I will Hot Glue round wooden dowels into the bent wall sections, as a square dowel will not work without infilling with a hefty amount of molten Hot Glue… The round dowels will still require healthy portions of Hot Glue to stabilize and strengthen the models, but they should require far less molten Hot Glue to get the job done. More photo's to follow as work progresses. Cheers!

A new building finished -- a Mage Knight Gate Tower (quite large). Here are some images of the finished model: front door entrance (only entrance as designed, but a 2nd, heavy-duty steel door will be added to the rear side); rear view. Note that the figures shown are 25mm-28mm, for size reference purposes.

The construction techniques on this model were challenging. The walls did not span the full distance on any side of the octagon upper roof! I had to trim off some of the dressing stones around the outside border of the floor section, to allow the walls to line up properly. I may have had Adobe Reader set to scaling, rather than full size, not sure. The crenelation pieces had to be trimmed down to fit accurately, as well. To further muddy the waters, this model was designed to be printed on 110# cardstock, not pasted to 2mm thick chipboard.

The side plates were warped when I started, so I used some extra round wooden dowels left over from other projects, to remove the warping. I Hot Glued the dowels to the chipboard plates, pressing them against the warped chipboard, until the Hot Glue hardened. The round dowels worked the best in the other-than-90-degree corners.

This led to the insides of the Gate Tower being quite an ugly mess of wooden dowels and Hot Glue, but since the insides were never intended to be playable spaces, I went heavy on the Hot Glue, filling and reinforcing the joints, and the wooden dowels.

More to come as progress dictates. Cheers!

I finished a couple more of the buildings: a Fat Dragon Games temple and a side building for it. These two buildings were included in the Basic Castle/Keep set, now OOP. Here is another couple of views of the main temple building, and the smaller building which can be used separately, or butted against the main building, as shown in the first photo. I really think I need to make a second outbuilding, turning it so that its door faces away from the main entrance -- this would be convenient for folks to sneak out towards the back of the temple, should the city guard show up at the front door… Note that the Human figures shown are 25mm-28mm, for size reference purposes.

Here are two examples of the old TSR Huntsman Huts, with octagonal walls and roofs. These are a real challenge to fit the roofs to the lower building, such that they line up properly. It is not as noticeable in the photos -- maybe. In person, it is really obvious. Note that I did not black-line the seams on the roofs yet. Sorry.

The construction techniques on these models are largely the same: wooden dowels (both square and round) Hot Glued into place to flatten warping walls by Hot Gluing them in the middle, and again, more wooden dowels Hot Glued in the seams to join them together, reinforcing the seams. I used a lot of Hot Glue on the insides of these models -- good thing it is inexpensive! The Hot Glue, and the wooden dowels, add a great deal of heft to these models. They are strong, and heavy, and durable. Cardstock has nothing on these hefty, hefties!

More to come as progress dictates. Cheers!