Marienburg - City of Islands, Bridges & Secret Deals

The Fropgprince ominously warned Werekin at the end of the video, "I don't mean to panic you mate but..."

Scuppered: Yes, you guessed it folks, we had sprung a leak on one of the boards! Even though they were sealed up with masking tape, the resin managed to find its way out at one end of the table.

We had left the room by this stage because the fumes were tremendous, and not in a good way! The reason we popped back in was I could not remember affixing one of the corpse parts to the table.

Panic ensued! We had resin trickling across the newspaper covered table and onto my bedroom carpet. Grabbing one of the test tubs (yes we did some test pours to check how the polyester behaves!) Frogprince caught the drips. A stroke of luck followed as the catalyst kicked in! The flow of the leak was cancelled out immediately as the resin hardener suddenly did its thing. A moments reprieve.

It appeared as if we'd lost only a small amount resin in the unfortunate leak. We left the material to set. After one day the resin was able to be covered with polyester sheet (clingfilm wrap) which blocks the air supply to the resin allowing the surface to dry. Without the wrap the top surface remains tacky. You must do this.



Volume: The depth of the resin is only 5mm. This is not particularly thick. When I first started the project it had not dawned on me just how much volume was required for the job. After making the calculations we found we would need just under 12 Litres of resin to fill the board! It's just that when you look at the area being covered you assume it's not a great volume. Never rely on estimations, do the math first. 12 litres of polyester resin set me back £90. This was a lot cheaper than acrylic resin and other water effect products. As it turned out it was also the riskiest substance! In Marienburg, as with anywhere else, you get what you pay for.

Shrinkage: After one day it was evident that the resin had shrunk, cracked at the edges - especially corners (note the central area of the boards remained fine) and began to warp in a few places on the outer edge. In one of the photographs you can see there are books stacked on the boards. This are precariously balanced on the frame! Each book pile is pressing down upon a small block of styrofoam which is touching the warped area. The weight from this exercise counteracted the worst of the warping.

Everything described are known properties of polyester resin. There was research, just not enough. You can never have enough research! With the benefit of hindsight there were various things I'd have tackled the exercise with a lot more caution and done things differently. I went about things a bit gung-ho.



Salvage: Within one week, the resin was rock hard. I was a bit deflated at the results because of the cracks and warping. After sending one final lamenting email to Cianty (his response: told you so elf-lover!) it was time to man up and tackle the next phase. Running the repairs! Atter removing all the tape, the mess from the leak needed to be removed. After chiselling away at the clods of semi-hardened resin that had leaked, the boards were laid flat.



I began to apply thin layers of 'Realistic Water' made by 'Woodland Scenics' to all the areas affected by shrinkage and cracking. This material has a pleasant odour thank Sigmar! The resin had left my flat smelling more toxic than the Skaven Under-Empire for nearly a whole month.



Realistic Water is also prone to shink. Therefore this process was repeated every 2 or 3 days for a number of weeks until eventually the boards became flatter and somewhat tidier.

While this whole process has been far from ideal, being rather time consuming, and adding further undesirable cost to the project, it has now granted us some hope that we will achieve a satisfying result. As the sun sets over the Reik Estuary we are looking forward to our epic campaign in the City of Islands & Bridges.

Thank you for sharing your odyssey. The end result looks very cool in the final photo.

After i read this and saw the pictures,I am just glad that you remaint healthy.

I do not know the receipt of yor resin but normally the fumes are unhealthy and/ or toxic.

Additionally you did this in a small room. These fumes ( depending on the product you used) are flameable in the right concentration in the air.

So you are lucky that the results turned out so good.

Please write down a warning in your blog, so that other people do this outside.
If you have done this already and i overread it just ignore these recommendation.

So have fun with your table it looks nice.

SerialMoM

Well, i just experienced the same, just not with 12 litres of resin. I had 5 litres to work on my swampsection with, and i was totally stunned by all the problems caused by the resin. First, as mommy allready wrote, those fumes are toxic, believe me, i worked all the rest resin outside, and even with the project carried to the outside, all the fumes just found a way through windowgaps, and the apartment smelled like a hells kitchen. It carried on for 4-5 weeks to maintane the evil stench. Even after half a year now, we just played a game on this board last weekend, and beeing in the small workspace- tabletoproom again, the first thing the guys said when entering the room was " What is that smell?!" . For future projekts i actually dont know what to use instead of; Acrylic watersceenstuff is too expensive as werekin allready wrote. Glue turnes out to become milky in the end, even as an cheap filler, you will see it afterwards its covered with acrylic. Even so the resin looks terrific, i think i wont do it again in such big amounts. For bases ja, but a 5 litre thing, nope! And about the fumes: wearing those oneway masks you can buy at your local buildingretailer, the dont work a shit! The gas is going rightthrough. Waht you need to wear while working with big amounts of resin is, even if taken outside, a proper proffesional laquer mask, that has an filter designed for gas and fumes.If your health means something to you, pay the higher price, its worth it, unless you like to be high on resinfumes!

SerialMoM is quite right. Polyester resin is not to be trifled with. The catalyst itself is highly corrosive! The mix of hardener is measured at 1%. That in itself gives you an idea of how lethal the stuff is!

Polyester resin fumes are toxic. We operated in a well ventilated space with four windows. In hindsight this was utterly stupid. This is a job to be done in a workshop environment. If I had the chance to do it again then I would have set things up properly in my fathers garage on a summer day. The material requires room temperature to react and harden.

The heat reaction itself if fairly dangerous. We had a few litres leftover. This was still sat in the tin and it became unbelievably hot. It didn't explode but it was rather hazardous.

In case it's not already obvious, we are not advocating the use of this material. Repeat our antics at your own peril if you like to take chances!

The trick is the premium. When all is said and done you have to consider the cost of hobby materials. 15L of polyester resin can be purchased for at least £90. You'd be looking at 4 or 5 times that cost with a stabler material! Heck I've sent another £30 on Woodland Scenics 'Realistic Water' just to fill the bloody cracks.

Factoring in paint, glue, varnish, tape, screws, nails, wood and other materials and the cost of the playing surface has cost is pushing the £200 mark. And that's before considering the next phase of my operation: Islands & Bridges

floedebolle wrote:

And about the fumes: wearing those oneway masks you can buy at your local buildingretailer, the dont work a shit!

yeah, those masks are really only for particulate matter like brick dust and stuff. gaseous stuff like the fumes given off will still find a way through.

like Werekin said a little more research and we would have know about the problems involved. it wasn't until a few days later that i received an email from him suggesting the the fumes may possibly be carcinogenic........

oh and the part where it dissolve/melted the plastic container that we used for the test pouring. the tin that had the leftovers in became almost too hot to touch (people can usually stand up to around 65 degrees celcius so it was probably around that) and ended up in the sink. add that to what SerialMoM said about the possible flammable nature of the product and that could have been a disaster in its own right!

basically, don't try this at home! try something safer like sheets of perspex or something!

If you want, you can send me the product name and the ingredients of polyester resin.

I can research if there is a carcinogenic compound in the fumes or in the liquid phase. Normally i think such a product wouldn't be on the market. But if it calms you, i will gladly do this research on Saturday or so.

SerialMoM

Oh God. I used the polyester resin recently, it was not much of this thing, just a little (I think 50 ml)... the smell wasn't great, but we had well ventilated room, we didn't smell it after 2 hours anymore. I'm hypochondriac, please don't scare me

I dont think that small amount of resin is mentionable. But keep away from those litre things!

BY the way, yesterday i went by my local miniature shop, and i asked him for something compareable to resin, and what he gave me was an old bottle of woodland scenics " Realistic Water", says its non toxic, flexible and no mixing, so, i will try that and of course i will post a picture of the result. If anybody allready has expirience with that stuff, please share, floedebolle

floedebolle wrote:

I dont think that small amount of resin is mentionable. But keep away from those litre things!

BY the way, yesterday i went by my local miniature shop, and i asked him for something compareable to resin, and what he gave me was an old bottle of woodland scenics " Realistic Water", says its non toxic, flexible and no mixing, so, i will try that and of course i will post a picture of the result. If anybody allready has expirience with that stuff, please share, floedebolle

The Woodland Scenic Realistic Water works fairly nicely, & has no noticeable aroma. If you add a couple of drops of water color [I used Dr. Martin's] you can get a transparent coloration. It doesn't like prolonged exposure to direct sunlight however.
The latest attempt at "water" involved a few layers of that awful smelling stuff over a painted surface & a layer of crack filler; .the polyeurathane reacted with the crack filler to produce an interesting texture & a smell like a seat on a cross town bus. The final result was rather nice; & I enjoyed humming White Rabbit for a few days.

Compared to the price those kids charge for crack cocaine nowadays, 90 quid's a steal ...

Truly epic, this thread, the videos, the board, just wow! Looking forward to what you will use it for, and glad that you survived.

P.S.: The Scenery Bloke? Good stuff, that, then.

@floedebolle - My long-winded post mentions my using Reaslistic Water by Woodland Scenics in order to fill the gaps created when the resin shrunk and cracked. I got through one and a half bottles of the stuff before calling time on the touch-up's. At £15 per bottle 16 fl oz (473 ml) you don't get very far on £90!

While a saving is made using this stuff it is potentially hazardous to your health therefore it doesn't justify the cost. I would recommend thinking smaller scale to anyone and the Woodland Scenics stuff is pretty good to work with. It doesn't smell much.

Quote :

Oh God. I used the polyester resin recently, it was not much of this thing, just a little (I think 50 ml)

@Skavenblight - Calm down your evil highness! Frogprince & I are currently still alive. You will be fine using such a teeny amount.

My advice to anyone who wants to game on or around water is this. Buy a piece of blue cloth!

Here are the sea boards before we move to raising the foundations for our mutiny.

I've been following this thread eagerly, guys! Really appreciate seeing how it's coming together, and all the ups and downs of the journey.

Here's another thought: I saw this video the other day - the product (Glass Coat - I think it's Australian) he uses to create this naval warfare table looks really excellent. He only uses a thin coat though - not sure how it would go with a thicker coverage.

(And he does rabbit on a bit in the video - skip to 2:45 or so to see the table itself.)

Edit: Here's another project using the same 2-part resin.

@tomogui - thanks for linking that vid! Loads of ideas for sea-based terrain now! That fella RubbishInRubbishOut has some cool stuff. Love the way the islands are done - very lootable for Warhammer/Mordheim scale stuff! (They just need bigger trees!)

I so, so, so, so, so, so, SO want to build a sea board!!

The great city-port Marienburg is a chain of islands. That being the case the next phase of my expedition in hobbycraft is creating city foundations for Luydenhoek Isle. The island is itself interspersed with a network of canal tributaries. Luydenhoek is situated in the South Dock district (also known as Suiddock) and it happens to be the location of the infamous marketplace known as Potion Square.



As was correctly noted by one clever observer, I have employed plasti-card with various stone cobble effects to clad chunks of styrofoam. Slaters is the company which manufactures their 'plastikard' range of materials intended for use with toy trains. Unfortunately, like a lot of craft materials, this stuff is unrealistically priced. It's okay if you require a small quantity but I'm using a shedload of the stuff and it's become another costly exercise. I chose to use the stuff which is the flattest (whilst maintaining an attractive finish) for this job because I am placing various buildings on top of these sections. It's preferable if buildings can lay flush to their foundations.





I've started giving my foundations a lick of paint. More highlighting is required to make them match up with the custom terrain that's already been built for me by Carl Merrell.





These sections are 9"x9" and only 1" deep. I've also made half a dozen which are 18"x18" and 2" deep plus some elongated shaped ones to help plug gaps and landscape backwater lagoons when setting up!

I'm currently adding extra detail to some of the foundations. I want outflow pipes to connect the canals to the sewers in some places. I've got some lids from wine bottles and paint pots which look like they have sewer-pipe potential.

Super awesome!!
Makes me want to moove down to Poole/Marienburg.
The cobblestones look great.

Looks great so far! I'm very curious to see how this table develops, especially specific buildings from the Marienburg map!

Any plans for a Suiddock City Watch post as well?

Dude, nice work! Could you tell me what those Marienburg books are and where you get those? (Maybe per PM)

gewaltatron wrote:

Dude, nice work! Could you tell me what those Marienburg books are and where you get those? (Maybe per PM)

They look to me like the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay books Marienburg: Sold Down the River and The Dying of the Light.
Both available second-hand but at VERY high prices!

werekin wrote:

I'm currently adding extra detail to some of the foundations. I want outflow pipes to connect the canals to the sewers in some places. I've got some lids from wine bottles and paint pots which look like they have sewer-pipe potential.

hope you got the grey to match the scenery i did, in case you need to know it is vallejo field blue over black undercoat, storm cloud grey acrylic and finally light brush of vallejo white, keep up the good work

Carl, you may want to edit your post because you're re-posted my entire sequence of picture when they are fairly image-intensive!

The shot of my prototype foundation block has been highlighted from a cheap black spray undercoat using DIY wall paint (cheap in volume) which is a perfect match to one of the main colours from my core palette of miniatures paints; Shadow Grey.

I am highlighting in moderation with Citadel paints Codex Grey through to Fortress Grey from the pot to improve the finish, but I do not wish to go overboard with the highlighting because the 'star' terrain features are going to be your buildings and my bridges.

Smokezombie, are you saying your Clan Eshin are planning to traverse the Underways and pop out from the sewers into the stinking man-warrens? I look forward to seeing your warriors tussle with the 'ruling' Skaven clan in Marienburg as well as the local smuggler gangs operating in this port-city.

Regards,

Stuart.

There you go, Werekin; a quick edit by you friendly, neighborhood Mod.

You're board is coming along WONDERFULLY!

Can't have a chain of islands unless you can cross 'em. I'm knocking half-a-dozen bridges together specifically for this purpose.



I picked up a bunch of bridge kits from the model train hobby shop in the arse-end of town. These are little more than fronts. Luckily I have a bunch of various cobbled stone effect plasticard at my disposal, including some really nice thicker stuff proving useful for basing miniatures. This is produced by a company called 'Wills' and costs around £3 for a small pack. I figured this would make a nice cobble-surface for the bridges and help them stand out a bit from the common stonework.



Two of the bridges are cast in resin. These are canal bridge kits produced in a different scale for military shenanigans but they look great as small bridges being slightly wider than a wagon or carriage. I will use these basic parts and forget the trimmings because those are not evidently to the scale I want, and rather flimsy.

Another consideration is the Marienburg Grand Sewer Network. To this effect I have started working out how to hint at this. The smaller bridge section can also double-up as representing large sewer entrances when placed beneath another foundation section or building.

You can't see this yet but I've stuck a couple of bottle caps (from the last of my winter mulled wine & autumn harvest mead!) to foundations with the intention of creating narrow leaking sewer-pipes. Carl Merrell has painted some sewer-grates which can be deployed at players leisure (scenario time!) and I have scratched together a half-dozen more entry points to the Grand this week in the form of sewer-inlets to be deployed on the canal itself. These are included below, they should look strangely familiar to most of you!



Regards,

Stuart

Everything is coming along nicely, Stu!

Love the bridges, especially the bigger one. One question though; what's the width of the canal? If I'm ever able to play on this table it would be nice to have a boat that could fit underneath the bridge.. I'm not sure if your cutting mat has inches or centimetres on it, but my I think it's about 3"?

VERY NICE looking W.I.P. bridges.
That does, however, bring up a awkward point. Your W.I.P. thread belongs in the Scenery & Terrain Section. The Gallery Section is reserved for completed pieces. Once you acknowledge this post I'll move it for you.