Hirst Arts Mold suggestions- Fallout/Space Hulk

[NewEvolutionGames]

Hey, all. Having a hard time deciding on which molds to pick up. I plan on picking up 5 molds because getting a sixth actually ends up raising my price quite a bit with the extra shipping for 6 vice 5 molds.

I'm planning to do a Fallout Vault or a Space Hulk layout. Maybe something that could be used for both types of gaming.

I'm looking at picking up #276, #277, and #279 which are all floor tiles or tiles with doors. I could then pick up the edging piece #325 or pick up a Starship Wall mold #301. However, I really like the Med Lab Accessory Mold #303 and the Industrial Accessory Mold #326.

Which would you get? Let me know what you think.

[snitcythedog]

Personally, I would go structural vs. accessory.  The edging mold is nice and I have seen some neat stuff done with it but I do not think that picking it up would be helpful for your first order.  The med lab accessory mold has structural components that are aesthetically nice but it is again mostly accessories.  The lockers are the best parts in the mold.  The other mold that I could suggest is the cargo bay accessory mold #302.  The pipes will fit into either your walls or in with your floor tiles.  Both would be helpful.  The Machinery Builder Mold #327 can be used for structural components too.  My 2 cents. 
Snitchy sends.   

[Willypold]

The big decision you need to make is this: do you want a layout with high walls or not? If you go with the low-wall concept you really only need the Industrial Edging mold and your choice of floor tile molds. (The three-door room in the middle of the picture below is from a low-wall set.)

If you want high walls the choices are a little more difficult. I would suggest the following molds, assuming you wish to use the 1.5 inch floor tiles (quite necessary if you want a Space Hulk set):

Floor tiles
Choice one: floor tile molds #278 and #279. You get a lot more mileage and variety with 278, and 279 will give you a door and other useful bits, but 279 is also geared towards 277 (the fan and the broken tile).
Choice two: floor tile molds #277 and #279. Less variety, but there's a better match between 277 and 279.

Walls
There are two ways you can do this, either pick up a couple of the different wall molds, or go for the concrete floor mold and a couple of the machinery molds.

Wall molds: Pick all three of #301, 302 and 303. That way you get a lot of different structural components for your walls, creating interesting and varied surfaces.

The Concrete floor mold #280 will get you plenty of flat wall sections, which is how I primarily use it. Add the narrow pipe mold #321 and either #326 or 327 in order to dress up the plain walls with interesting stuff.

For my own Space Hulk set I use just about all of the molds - the plaster habit tends to grow on you... 

[Dr Mathias]

I believe the first molds I acquired for the Hulk project were all the 1.5" floor tile available at the time (276, 277, 278, 279) and #325 Industrial Edge. I already had some gothic molds and a pipe mold that I mixed in. I acquired all the other relevant sci-fi molds when I was almost done casting- I kind of wish I'd had them earlier. They'll have to show up in my Sisters of Battle ship project.

Keep in mind that several sci-fi molds are 1" tiles. If you're planning to make walls, Genestealer figures don't fit well in 1" wide corridors.

Bruce Hirst had plans for a Space Hulk layout on his site until GW made him remove it. I think it only used molds 276, 277 and 325.

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=35623.0

[zizi666]

Keep in mind that several sci-fi molds are 1" tiles. If you're planning to make walls, Genestealer figures don't fit well in 1" wide corridors.

Very true.
My paper Space Hulk terrain is built up out of Stones Edges pieces with 1,5" tiles. The walls are even wider apart, but since I used octagon blocks for corners, I can't fit a genestealer between them (1.ed. genestealer, dunno if the latest ones are smaller ?)

[Willypold]

Looks like the same mission as in my image... :-)

[NewEvolutionGames]

I will definitely be using the 1.5 inch tiles as I feel they give you a little more play room. Even is I were using it for a board game type situation, I would just convert all the measurements to the 1.5 inch squares.

I guess my real question for those who have done this or something similar, which 5 molds would you start with?

I kinda like Willypolds layout with a mix of walls and edges. Do the industrial edge work well with the starship walls or should the combination be avoided.

Here's my basic thoughts on my project so far. It's going to be a long(LOOOOONNNNNGGGG) so I want to make the right starts and not make it even longer. I plan to start smaller, maybe a 3X3 table and expanding out from there. Of course, it will be modular. I would like to have walls and may go as far as adding LED lighting.

Thanks for the opinions, eventually I'll get this narrowed down to the 5 to get me started.

[zizi666]

Looks like the same mission as in my image... :-)

Yes, I hadn't even noticed that 

[Willypold]

I kinda like Willypolds layout with a mix of walls and edges. Do the industrial edge work well with the starship walls or should the combination be avoided.

Here's my basic thoughts on my project so far. It's going to be a long(LOOOOONNNNNGGGG) so I want to make the right starts and not make it even longer. I plan to start smaller, maybe a 3X3 table and expanding out from there. Of course, it will be modular. I would like to have walls and may go as far as adding LED lighting.

The industrial edge works perfectly with the starship walls. As pictures are more telling I'll provide a couple more to show precisely how my set is constructed. The walls are a 0.5 inch thick sandwich of 1/8 inch panels - the 1x1.5 inch panels from #301, the "light column" from #302, the 1x2 inch panel from #303, the various 1x1 floor panels from #271, the large hatch from #278, the floor panels from #280, and various bits and pieces as fillers and corner columns. The outer layer of the walls use the grate panels from #277 and the hatches and drains from #278, with the occasional exception.

In order to get a more interesting view from above I added bits from the Machinery molds along the walls for the regular Space Hulk set and narrow pipes for the modular sections in the third image.

Construction of my own set has been spread out over almost two years, and it's taken Dr. Mathias two years to get his set completed. When I had a lot of time on my hand I could complete about two or three sections in a week. On the other hand I haven't even touched the set for long periods.

Adding LEDs sounds like a great development. I'm curious about how, as I would like to do that myself.

Anyway. A couple of construction examples. Finished wall section:



Rooms under construction:



An approach useful for a fallout layout:



One important, but rather discrete detail about the Industrial Edge mold is the fact that all of the tubes and stuff are pulled back 1.5 mm from the inside edge, which means that you get a 41 mm free space for figure bases between the opposing edges. Why is that important? Because a 1.5 inch floor tile is 38 mm across, and if you're using regular 40K Terminators they're standing on 40 mm bases... This was something some of us pointed out at the Hirst forum when Bruce was discussing the design of the Industrial Edge.

[NewEvolutionGames]

Willypold, Thanks for the extra pictures. So the industrial edge is almost a must for single tile corridors? If you want termies to fit anyway?

Just so I understand, your walls are two wall pieces glued back to back with filler in between? I might just be reading it wrong.

LEDs seem easy to set up with what I've been reading. You can actually run quite a few low powered ones on just batteries for quite a long time. The idea started out as just doing a few of the Cryotubes from the Accessory mold with LED lights in the bottom with a colored plastic door so they glow like the Security Robot stations in Fallout 3. The more I read about LED lighting and it's applications, I might go nuts and add more lit pieces about. Some ceiling lighting, some blinking lights for buttons and such. I've even thought about hollowing out one of the computer accessories and making a backlight screen. That's the most adventurous idea I've had so far. I plan to do a start to finish project log/blog. Figure if I get people interested in my project, it'll keep me moving forward as well.

Since I need so many molds to fill out my whole project, I may do with just floor and edging molds to start. Once I finish that part of the casting, priming, and painting, I might be ready for the walls. I'm still kinda torn at the moment.

[Willypold]

The walls are made up of two layers of 1/8 inch thick panels, creating a 1/4 inch thick wall.

If you add walls right next to the floor tiles you will get a distance of 38 mm between the walls - not only is this too narrow for 40 mm bases, but also too narrow for the genestealer arm spread - you really want that extra inch provided by the industrial edge. What you really should do is take a look at the Gothic Arena project on the Hirst Arts projects page, as my Hulk set actually uses the same geometry as the Arena project.

I started out by building a pretty straightforward low wall set, and then decided to do a version with high walls. All of the sections for both sets are mounted on 5 mm black foamboard. If you want to build a set with just the industrial edge and later add walls you may want to cut the base (of whatever you wish to use) so that you have an edge later to glue the walls onto.

Another picture to better show what I mean:



If you can live with the baseboard extending beyond the industrial edge this may be the best solution, and if you end up deciding to not adding walls, you can always cut it off later.

[NewEvolutionGames]

Willypold, I figured you meant 1/4 inch thick on the walls, just wanted to make sure you hadn't added foamcore between the layers.

One option I hadn't thought of was to build the walls first and put the floors in later. I could then pick up a single floor mold, cast enough to get me started and build/paint up my walls first and add the floors in later. Otherwise, I can definitely live with the extra edge until I get my walls built up.

Any reason to go with Black foamcore other than color convienence? I plan to seal the edges and paint the whole piece, except maybe the bottom.

[Willypold]

I use foamcore for the ease of cutting and the fact that it is readily available, compared to other solutions. I'm quite happy with it and I've used it for all of my projects for the past four or five years.

There are two varieties of foamcore available where I live (Stockholm, Sweden) - white and black. I've noticed some differences between the varieties, and they react differently to the glue and spraypaints I use. The white variety is extremely sensitive to the water in white glue and will warp if I use that kind, likely due to the paper quality. On the other hand the black foamcore is often totally wrecked by the contact cement I use for assembling the walls - the foam simply melts - but doesn't seem to react negatively with white glue. After some experimentation I've come to assemble the walls using contact cement and mount the floor tiles and the edge pieces, and ultimately the walls onto the floor sections, with white glue.

You may want to experiment with what you have available where you live, as different brands obviously have different properties. I also like the black colour, of course!

If you don't glue the floor tiles to the backing material, but glue the edge pieces, making a snug fit, you would be able to remove the floor tiles later. Or how about getting the concrete floor tile mold and use it both for your floors (concrete) and as wall sections to get maximum use out of a single mold?

[zizi666]

IOn the other hand the black foamcore is often totally wrecked by the contact cement I use for assembling the walls - the foam simply melts - but doesn't seem to react negatively with white glue

Which makes PVA and ideal sealant. I've done this in the past. just brush PVA glue on the foam to protect it.

[NewEvolutionGames]

I am in the US so either one is readily available. I can pick up the white pretty cheap so that might be my default. I've heard if you paint both sides it won't warp as bad.

I lean away from the concrete floor tiles because they just seem so basic. The diamond plate and grates would be beyond my ability to make on my own, I could probably manage to make on my own. The level of detail in the concrete ones would not justify the cost of the mold for me.