The Catacomb Roof
(The Sewer)




Click on the images to enlarge them:


I am into the planning stage of making a dungeon. For this project I like to make a range of custom blocks. It is not certain that all I design will actually go into this dungeon project but you only know this after you tried out making these blocks.

Within the Hirst Arts Community there has been this topic on making dungeon or catacomb roofs. I liked the idea but I also realised that making a roof would not add that much to a 25mm piece of scenery since most of the time you look at it from above.

But a possible concession could be to make a partially roof section that suggest a half open or caved in dungeon. So I thought “Let’s give it a try”.

For this test I used a Fieldstone Wall Builder Mold. This a copy of an existing Wall Builder Mold but in this case I made this custom mold using Fieldstones.The mold is very flexible so this is what I did:

Step one:

I used 2 tiles of 1.5”each to determine the width of the arch to be.
Along the sides of these tiles (making this a passage or hallway of 3”) I glued pieces of foam board upon another piece of foam board I used as a base. In this first picture you see the Field Stone Wall Builder Mold and in front the setup for this test.

Step two:

Although te mold is rather flexible It still wants to get back to its original form very bad. So I used these two stone to be sure that the mold would not press he foam board sides away. To make sure the sides stayed perfectly straight I stuck 2 large tiles between the two sides on top of this temporary casting form I was making.


Step three:

The two short sides could now be glued on as well and again with some help from two more stones I sealed the temporary mold and kept from getting out of its form.Ready to cast so here it goes.


Step four:

The Plaster is “Dental Plaster Class IV” A reasonable hard plaster so after half an hour I started to remove the short sides of the form.
Now things would get tricky!


Step five:

The Plaster is still quite moist so not as strong still. The change of breaking is there since the mold still tries to get back to its original form. I thought about this when I was about to remove the sides of the temporary form. I decided to change plans. Knowing that the mold is flexible I tried to bend (or roll) the mold even more so I could pus the mold out. This worked remarkably well so after that the tension within this structure was gone and the sides could be removed.

Step six:

The next step was to remove the plaster between the bricks in order to get back the half stone pattern. By doing this I can glue bricks against this form as you see in this picture and thus forming a straight wall.


Step seven:

Just to be sure I checked the width of the arch again that now is actually 2,5” since the wall on both sides is coming inwards ˝” each.



So what to do next with it? Well I have to think of that a bit more. Looking at it made me also wander if this form would also be nice as a canal for a dungeon sewer with walkways at the side. This is just a test so I will experiment a bit more with this form. I will update this topic when there are new ideas or add-on features that are interesting. My first impression is that it is usable for a kind dungeon.



Building test:

A little test to see how a possible form would look when it is used as some kind of sewer system. I added a possible walkway on the side.





Second attempt,
Step one:

The Catacomdb roof led me to this next test, "The Sewer". I made a mold like a normal Wall Builder mold and will experiment with this new mold in the same way as I did with the Fieldstone one. I already see another use for this mold since it also looks like some sort of street pattern.

Step two:

This new sewer part is made in the same way as the one in the first attempt. The mold is rather flexible and in this case it shows since the rectangual stones are now facing in the long direction of this piece. At the ends you see that the stones, that are normal 1"x 1/2" are stretched out a lot. In this case this will give me lots to worry bout as to get more pieces like this to connect in a decent way.

Step two from above:

Another shot of this second test. In this picture you can see what a bended flexible mold does to a 1"square hatch. Overall I am not that discontent with the outcome so I will try to make a little dispaly to at least give you an impression of how this sewer could look.




Here ends this topic for now. Update will follow soon. If you have any comments or ideas please drop me a mail.


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