Hi All, I was looking for suggestions for places that sell buildings with interiors? I really like the CB partner death ray designs new ceres and odinheim lines, BUT they all look to be boxes with really stylish gubbins placed on the outside. I have some nice old school shark mounted lasers (now oop) terrain that is all painted up, its super functional, but not super stylish. I was looking for a line that is both, and mainly looking to add a taller sky scraper or two. (for clarity I don't expect all of a multi layer building to be accessible, but I would like it to be more functional then a box). I also saw the warsenal Xiguan tower, but again that is *mostly* only accesible from the exterior. Anyway looking for suggestions! thanks! -Nate
I'm not aware of any for sale, but I tried making some myself. I found that you start to get structural issues when you get to a larger footprint. Below was my first attempt at larger building. It was chip board, and MDF would have been HEAVY. Even with just chipboard you needed to always pick it up with 2 hands otherwise the walls would just break off the floor. I'd have to reinforce it a lot more to make it strong enough for transport. To make the internal area playable you need it big enough for scatter terrain and minis. I figured 8-8 minimum. The one below is 12 inches on it long edge. With all the extra surface area and reinforcement I would assume the cost would get up there. I think that's why there aren't really any on the market.
I made some a few years ago. 3mm cardboard ("chipboard"?), in fact I could've used 2mm just as well. Glued with PVA. Yes, at single layer the contact surfaces would be too small, but some clever design engineering does solve that. The texts I wrote on these are still available over at DataSphere blog.
Antenocities makes some nice buildings with (optional) interior - I like them very much, the parts fit very good.
Yours (great series of articles, BTW) is cardboard or greyboard, frequently used in Europe for book's covers or quality boxes, highly related to (recycled?) plain paper. Chipboad seems to be brown and more "MDFish" (fibreboard? masonite?), used for forniture backs, more directly related to wood than paper. OTOH, sellers announce whatever... like grey chipboard. There is also foamed PVC and foamboard (normal PS core or high quality PU). If IKEA can make hollow things that do not bend easily... it's just a matter of finding the right layout (IKEA uses card honeycomb, IIRC).
Just yesterday i saw this posted on another place, the interior of an IKEA desk top: Yep, honeycombs. What i have no idea how you'd accomplish is putting this inside of a scratchbuilt building for a table.
Ah. I see. The terminology can be quite confusing. Thank you :) I had worked with a piece of foamed PVC years ago. Working on it with a hobby knife was a nightmare. Also, regarding heavy cardboard - should anyone wonder about its durability - we have a set of buildings made by ne of our former players 9 years ago. 2mm grey/cardboard, single-layer joints with narrow contact surfaces, PVA glue. Still doing well as our primary table set thorugh all those years, however the design means that the rooftop railings did required repair a few times, and that some care in handling these is well advised. My 3mm with reinforced edges constructions are, in that light, somewhat overengineered and more durable than necessary. I had reviewed MDF terrain as well (Systema, if memory serves me), and it is heavier than carboard, obviously. Terrain durability is really a matter of designing for it, IMO. There were thin elements in it that turned to be less durable than I'd like them to (though still way stronger than if they were made of cardboard). The lesson there, I guess, is "design for the durability you want, and mind your material".
@Mob of Blondes Here are some photos of my 3mm ChipBoard to give you an idea. The long piece is a little over 3 feet long, and it can hold its own weight. A couple benefits of this over MDF is that is costs a lot less. The laser cutter takes less time and power to cut it. Weight. The main down side is that you have soot everywhere. When cutting MDF the material has a lot of glue that melts. The Chipboard doesn't have that and the edges need A LOT of cleaning. @Errhile I dropped the design because I wanted to make generic walls that would let me make any shape building I want, and just worry about making floor and roof pieces to spec. Unfortunately the way I designed the connectors was a little too weak, and would have to redesign the whole set. Considering I already designed 6 walls with easily selectable doors and walls, Stairs and frames. I really didn't feel like starting over. Plus I lost access to the laser cutter.
They are indeed working nicely with any SF minis. I've played Beyond The Gates of Antares with those and it was quite immersive (even if we stick with one level of terrain. I remember seeing a YT game of Infinity but can't remember the channel. They used verticality a lot and I didn't noticed and practical issue during the game. EDIT: Core Space is pretty fun to play BTW
Sounds like an interesting story. I didn't go for generic walls and connectors, but then I wasn't working with 3d design and laser cutter... merely a piece of paper, pencil and my brain. Then, cutting matt, ruler and craft knife. For me, the key goal was storageability, through the use of nesting designs. At some point I made a test on how much stuff a table would need (there's a text on that at Datasphere, too) con, it required redoing all the design part every time I was changing sizes. And definitely it would've been way, way less work if I could've done it digitally, and especially cut it with a laser cutter... Not to mention, rinse & repeat for an already preapred design. pro, I was able to get this done on a kitchen table (literally!) with equipment that costed next to nothing, compared to a laser cutter and stuff... Though what initially put me onto the topic of cardboard was one of the old Datasphere regulars who actually set up a business making wargaming terrain out of that tupe of cardboard (yes, with a laser cutter). Sadly he close it years ago :( ...frack, it makes me think about doing a return to the idea, with 8 basic buildings, maybe an Objective Room, and a hold'em'all structure... Hmm. One of these days, when my painitng station is out of models to paint ;)
@Errhile I tried to make them a bit storage friendly. In the example above the upper level was removable and could fit in the lower. Also with larger buildings people tend to space them out a little more. So fewer building are needed, more 'euro'. Plus I designed it with park area in mind. But i had to drop the design. My goal was to store everything in a Costco bag.
I work with foamed pvc board a fair bit these days. 3mm for structural stuff, 2mm for detailing. Cuts easily with a hobby knife (just takes a couple of passes) but is just as bad on blades as foamcore is. You only get about a dozen good cuts with a fresh blade. I usually cut the 8'x4' sheets (2440x1220 or so) down with a box cutter/stanley knife first, then work on the smaller pieces with other knives.
I mentioned it in the sense of reinforcements, not that it exactly has to be that. For example, glueing straps at 90 degrees will reinforce a long flat piece. It was more of about copying what is used in every other place, as long as it fits in the small size. I remember that Canadian range (store-flat buildings), someone in DS got a big order, and I got some card things from other place... yes, we both discovered the edges require a clean up with scrap paper or cloth. But once you know, minor problem. Thin MDF parts stuck in frame or breaking is more unnerving, for me. And molten glue behaving differently than the other surfaces can also be tricky. Anyone tried rotary ("pizza") cutters with foamed PVC? The cut action seems to be more crush than slide, and all the edge is used.
I tried it, and while my pizza cutter is certainly sharp enough to cut me, as well as pizza, it's nowhere near sharp enough to cut the 3mm stuff I use. So back to boxcutters and x-acto#11s I went.
Duh! I was talking about Olfa RTY family, and clones. Thin sharp metal discs. Pizza cutter here is some kind of hard plastic, slices pizza fine, more concusion than slash on skin.
That was @Marc C terrain, who is member of my LGS. He's the one who showed it to me. I'm not sure but I think the stuff I got was a little different from his. Mine was 3 layers of 1mm vs a solid 3mm. I think the stuff I got was more sooty and needed more cleaning. When using hand tools It's a bit of extra work, but a lot more robust. The only downside is you need real glue and is you can't just use hot glue and do something quick.
