The start of the Amon Sul Project:
Mid August 2003 Scott Spieker (host of Voidgamers) and I discussed the possibility of reproducing the “Amon Sul”
scenery piece as it is displayed and sold by Forgeworld. Well as you can see I did.
The custom built watchtower of “Amon Sul” my greatest challenge thus far!
I learned a lot during the development of this project simply by experimenting on building and custom block making techniques. I also tried some things
that did not work while other things turned out great. So if you are interested I will show you the great and less great (bloopers) things I discovered
while developing this project.
Although there is a very nice ruined tower mold within the Hirst Arts range, the main reason for trying to make this ruined tower was the size of it.
As Scott puts it; “I need some space to move around in, without my hand getting stuck into the structure”.
The “Amons Sul” Project was set for 16” diameter size project.
Preparation of the project: A bit of planning
Developing such a project means a lot of measuring, calculation and think work. Besides that I only had 6 pictures from this structure to work from and
only one given fact that the round structure was 16” in diameter ("This version ended up being a 15" version of it). Some parts were not visible from these
pictures so I let my imagination go free at those points.
A third of the time was spend on making it all work just got into looking at the original structure on my PC and from that calculating things in a way it all
would fit and work together creating this greatest challenge I have had thus far within this hobby.
Important when picking up a project like this is that you start off with something that is essential for the project. In this case I started creating
the blocks for the outside wall of this structure.
Preparation of the project: Making some helpful and essential tools
So how do you start producing blocks that are forming all these forms?
Here I will reveal my way of making these kind of blocks. I know I write this all as it is fairly simple but beware it is not!
Preparation 1: silicone part 1
Focussing on the outside wall I started with this great idea! I glued a bunch of custom chipped stones in a long row and made a mold out of it.
The idea was simple. A silicone mold of a long strip of chipped fieldstone blocks is flexible so now I can bend the mold in the desired form and start
casting.
To determine the line along which the mold has to be formed I simply used a piece of foam board as a kind of ruler. I pinned the ruler on to another
piece of foam board and measured the desired distance from the rotating point up to where I would like this future outside wall to be. Now I can draw a
circle (or at least a piece of it) that is the guideline for my mold.
Now here this exercise stops. The mold looks great and it produces nice large straight chipped blocks but when you start bending it, you will stretch
one side of the mold, pulling the form inside and the other side of the mold get crunched in. Although this test failed it was the beginning of “the”
next test that worked wonderful.
Preparation 2: silicone part 2
Although my first test on bending molds did not work out, it did trigger this next test that works very well. The idea was to try and actually built a mold.
Doing this I first needed the right material to actually built a mold. I started of by making a large chipped stone surface. I filled up the cracks in
between using plaster and a knife for moddeling the structure in order to create an ongoing surface.
I made a silicone print of this surface producing a large square (6”x 7.5”) of about 1/4" thick with a chipped stone structure on it.
The silicone piece will be partially cut up in strips varying from ¼” to ¾”. These ribbons will form the sides for the temporary molds.
Preparation 3: wooden forms
So now I got those floppy, wobbly sillicone strips.
These strips must have some sort of support so here is the next series of tools you must have to make custom blocks.
Before cutting all kinds of forms out of MDF board I made a drawing of the circular structure.
While making this schematic drawing I could roughly determine some important forms and blocks I wanted to make for this project.
This drawing is important to determine the amount of segments the circle must have. It also determines what kind of wall pieces (diameter wise) I might
want to have. I finally determined the size of the large outside round platform tile that I had to make.
With all this info I started to draw parts of circles onto a MDF plank of ½”thick.
I draw the desired curves and used a electrical saw to cut the form.
Now I have some guiding tools for my silicone strips when making temporary molds.
Creating the first blocks:
The first series of blocks to make are the blocks that form the outside wall.
The next two pictures reveal the way on how to do this. I used the wooden parts that have a curve of 15”on the outside and 14”on he inside.
(Please forget the sizes I wrote on the wooden parts since they are not right!)
To clarify things a bit, I did cut a piece of wood of ½” thick that used to be between the two parts but I guess that is obvious.
The part I am making here is a 4” long curved piece that has to represent 4 individual blocks in total.
The surface on which I cast the block is also chipped stone. I used 2 strips of silicone that is ½” in height and simply put two blocks on either
site to close the casting area. Besides that the two blocks also make sure that the width of the block is exactly ½”.
The block that is ready has to be divided into 4 segments. In this case I used a saw and slightly carved a cut into the block and scraped it a bit
wider with the point of a knife.
The same sequence was done in almost every block so I also included the making of the original large floor tile. This Tile is 2” deep and wide and is
a ¼” thick. I used the ½” high strips for the outer and inner sides and 2 strips of a ¼” in height for the left and right side.
Once the tile was cast I let it dry a bit and started scraping it gently with a slim scraper. It is obvious that it still takes sanding to get the block
exactly right.
Making a series of 5 different 15” round wall blocks, a large floor tile and three flat curved stones was all I needed to make the essential base of this
project as you can see in these pictures on the right.
The circle is made up out of 24 large floor tiles. In the final structure I used only the 2” wide 15” curved wall pieces that have the same size as the
floor tiles. So I used 48 wall pieces in total to make this 1” high 15” round wall.
Besides that I used 24 pieces of each stairway tile so adding it all up I used 5 different stones to create the base of the structure and used original
chipped stone floor tiles just to give this test a finished look.
Making the buttress blocks:
The next step is to create the first blocks of the buttress walls. Within the structure these walls take up an essential place. A nice detail in this is
that within the Forgeworld version there are five buttress walls as where I decided to make six. The Buttress
walls are mainly here to support a structure since the down force would push the walls and columns outside. This all has to do with the dome that was
there once. The forces within the structure where of such an nature that it was essential to support this structure adding these walls. You can still find
these support structures in real life. Just look at the structure of a cathedral for instance.
The Buttress walls cut up the circle and the walls all direct to the centre of the structure creating a nice guide line and make the structure also look
more interesting. These walls differ importantly comparing to other wall segments within the structure. Firstly the stones are bigger. They are higher
and they have a certain form going from wide on the outside to slim on the inside.
First to determine the height of an individual buttress block; this was relatively easy since It was important that adding these blocks against the
outside wall, they had to end up at the same height as the large floor tile so it was more easy to built the structure further up from that point.
Two stacked blocks must bring me to the same height as the large floor tile. So I cut two strips of silicone for these blocks. I measured these strips as
you can see in this picture where I hold them beside the outside wall.
The form of the block, looking at it from the top was drawn on a piece of paper and cut out.
Once I decided the block was ok I draw it onto an MDF piece of wood and cut out the form.
The trick here is to actually cut the form and when doing so, also cut this form in more than one piece. If you only should cut out the form you would
again alter this form when you place silicone strips in it so you have to work with more than one part.
I locked the pieces of wood onto the silicone base in a way that I could place the silicone strips in it. To get the curve on the buttress block right
I simply used a 15” curved block that pushes the silicone into its desired form.
A few tips on casting a block like this:
- Make sure the form is correct and all sides are firm so no altering or shifting will take place during the casting process. Needles will help in this case. You can easily use pins to attach silicone pieces temporary without really damaging the piece. You can also use heavy things on to or behind wooden parts to keep the form from altering.
- Cast the form while tapping gently beside the form you cast. Try to mix plaster a bit less firm as you usually do so the plaster can find its way easily within the temporary setup mold. Cast until the plaster does stick out a bit above the mold itself.
Do NOT work with tissues to extract water from it just give it some time to set.
- If you set up the temporary mold in an accessible way you might be able to scrape it gently and even might produce a blocks that comes out perfectly when it comes to height. I always try this using a very slim scraper. When it is not possible then there is no harm done it just means more cutting, scraping and sanding afterwards.
As I explained earlier, the form of the buttress walls are somewhat coned shaped.
They are wider on the outside and less wide on the inside. In total I made 6 different buttress blocks. As for the shape of the wall, see the pictures
above.
At the inside of these walls there are statues situated. When I started on this project I instantly knew the one figure I would like to use as a statue
for this project. The original figure is a Confrontation miniature of which I made a mold. The miniature
is not too complicated so I can make nice plaster casts from it and use them any way I like. The advantage of plaster is that you can demolish a statue
more easily to your liking as well.
Other wall segments:
At some points the 15” wall is pulled up, and at these same spots there are inside walls as well that make up a 12” circled wall. The space in between
these two walls is filled with stairways that lead up to the former
first floor. The 12” round wall stands on the inside edge of the large floor tile.
Two other circled walls are the 14” and 11” walls. The 14” circle is where you can find the pillars in this structure. They are located on the large
floor tiles ½” away from the outside edge. The 11” wall is only used for the part where the stairway from the outside circle leads down sideways on to
the inner floor. All blocks are made in the same way with the only difference that I used the appropriate curved MDF pieces to get the shape right.
Making of the pillars:
The pillars were made out of blocks with a radius that form a 14” circle. Making them this size means that they will be situated on the large floor
tile ½” from the outside edge of the tile. I made three main blocks that, when combined and cast 2 times, makes a 6 piece column that looks quite well
and is not that difficult in shape.
On the inside of the pillar blocks I made a smooth column. This smooth half round piece has to be aligned with the other pillar pieces.
The combination of the three different column stones gives you a nice variation within the pillar.
On the sides of the buttress walls there is a need of pillars that are cut up in half. I did cut them up with a saw and to help me a bit I already carved
a crack into the fresh cast block. Now I can more easily cut the block up in two.
The connecting archway was a nasty piece to make. I first used a fresh cast 14” curved block and cut the form out This was not that difficult.
The difficult part was the bend form is has on the inside where this piece tend to bend more inwards so the top side of the arch is wider.
The base of the arch is ½” thick, the top side (eventually) is 1.5” thick.
When I carved the arch I put the piece in a temporary mold so I was able to add plaster on to the inside of the arch. This was again sculpted into the
desired form thus forming this inside curve
Make over of the circle steps:
I developed 3 loose curved stones that did make a nice stairway but after a while (studying the pictures of the original version once again)
I decided that the stair section was to steep so I made another set. At that time I also discovered that the irregular square tiles that make up
the central floor of the structure had a circle on its outside between the stairway and the square tile surface itself.
I started again making a next series of stairway tiles in combination with a circle that connects the stairway to the round square.
I made the three step stones of the stairs in one mold. After drying I cut the pieces up to the desired size. In the series of pictures below you
can see how I first made the tiles within this one temporary mold, how they end up laid out in a row side by side and how eventually the stones work
together forming a less steep and thus a deeper stairway that looks more prominent then the first one. After the final test (see the difference in the
last picture of the old and new stairway) I have a good basic series of blocks so now I can actually seriously start assembling the tower!
Assembling the tower (second page):
The finished project (final page):
Back to the Buildings page
Back to SHIFTINGLANDS
Back to the top
Although my first test on bending molds did not work out, it did trigger this next test that works very well. The idea was to try and actually built a mold.
Doing this I first needed the right material to actually built a mold. I started of by making a large chipped stone surface. I filled up the cracks in
between using plaster and a knife for moddeling the structure in order to create an ongoing surface.
I made a silicone print of this surface producing a large square (6”x 7.5”) of about 1/4" thick with a chipped stone structure on it.
So now I got those floppy, wobbly sillicone strips.
These strips must have some sort of support so here is the next series of tools you must have to make custom blocks.
Making a series of 5 different 15” round wall blocks, a large floor tile and three flat curved stones was all I needed to make the essential base of this
project as you can see in these pictures on the right.
The next step is to create the first blocks of the buttress walls. Within the structure these walls take up an essential place. A nice detail in this is
that within the Forgeworld version there are five buttress walls as where I decided to make six. The Buttress
walls are mainly here to support a structure since the down force would push the walls and columns outside. This all has to do with the dome that was
there once. The forces within the structure where of such an nature that it was essential to support this structure adding these walls. You can still find
these support structures in real life. Just look at the structure of a cathedral for instance.
At some points the 15” wall is pulled up, and at these same spots there are inside walls as well that make up a 12” circled wall. The space in between
these two walls is filled with stairways that lead up to the former
first floor. The 12” round wall stands on the inside edge of the large floor tile.
