My Metal Meeples

[Ailurus]

After reading about Jofasa's aluminium meeples, I wanted to try something similar myself. I bought some tin, moulding sand and borrowed a (very) old hot plate from my dad

Moulding sand is a cheap way for making moulds, but it has a disadvantage: you can use the mould only once, because you have to get the tin object out. Fortunately you can use the sand itself multiple times.

Well, after some experimenting I found out that I had to use chalk powder to prevent the mould from being destroyed when I pull out the original object, i.e. the meeple.


You still have to be extremely careful!

My tin meeple set is almost complete now. I have yet to finish the meeples (saw the back off, and make the front look better).

[Gwommy]

Impressive!  Are you going to paint them at all?

[Celina]

So did you mix the chalk with the sand? Or did you just use chalk?
Those look wonderful! Are you going to polish or paint them?

[Ailurus]

Thanks! I am not going to paint them, but I will polish them
I've spent a few hours on sawing and rough-polishing (with a file), if I can find steel wool I can finish them.



I did not mix the sand with the talc. I used a brush to put the talc on the wooden gamepieces

[Celina]

Well I must say I am very impressed! Nice work. Bet you will feel smug when you use them in play!

[CKorfmann]

Those are very nice!

[Ailurus]

Thanks Chris. Since the forums are on-line again I can post the final results of my pewter meeples

[Celina]

Those look fantastic! Thanks for posting your pictures, I was so curious as to how they turned out and while the forums were down I was wondering if we'd ever get to see them.

[Novelty]

Wow, these look great.  The tin dragon looks amazing.

[Ailurus]

Glad you like them! I have to say they look a little better on this picture than they are in reality, because some meeples have some rough edges or dimples. This is because I use the casting sand instead of rubber molds.

Novelty, that dragon was a disaster to get right I couldn't get the mold right, because the sand got stuck between the pointy parts of its tail and neck. It took quite some filing to remove the abundant pewter.

I would like to apply some kind of finish on them, like galvanizing them. Unfortunately it seems this is rather difficult with pewter objects. If anyone has suggestions on how I could achieve nice finishes, please let me know. I don't want to paint them

Oh by the way, I made some extra key chains. If you are interested, please PM me. I don't have any experience with sending post to the US, so I would have to sort that out. [/merchant modus]

[Novelty]

Are you selling the pieces? Heh!

How about gold plating (or silver plating - that'd be cheaper) these meeples?  Would it work?

[Ailurus]

Novelty, I've been thinking about that. According to some sources, you first need a layer of copper or nickel  (or both), after that it should be possible to create a silver or gold layer. Sounds too expensive to me, I'm just a poor college student

Yep, the original idea was to offer some meeples for sale, however there are some issues with my latest batch of pewter, so I have to sort that out first. But if somebody would like to buy some, please don't hesitate to inform

Somebody asked (click) whether I could describe the casting process when using silicone moulds. I made some pictures yesterday, certainly not HD, but good enough to illustrate the process...

Silicone mould of the dragon. There is just one runner (big channel where the liquid pewter comes in) and two vents (small channels to let the air out of the mould). The three hexagonal bars are there to keep both parts aligned:


Going to grease the mould with graphite pulver:


After applying the graphite pulver:


I used to grease the moulds with talc:


Melting the pewter, notice the red-hot ring on the hot plate (my camera actually picks up some radiation that our eyes can't perceive):


After pouring the pewter in the moulds:


After only a few minutes, you can separate the two halves of the moulds. Notice the dimples, this was the first casting - moulds are not yet warmed up:


Other side of the meeples, notice the solidified runners (and pits around it) and vents:


The only problem left are the pits around the solidified runners. The dimples on the other side are almost gone, just by experimenting with the amount of graphite/talc powder, temperature of the pewter, etc...

[CKorfmann]

It's really nice to see this process.  I appreciate the photos.  Merit point for you!

[Ailurus]

Thanks Chris

Ok, I think I should be able to solve the problem with the dragonmould now. I didn't create risers in the mould, and I think I should...



I just ordered a disc sander, because I'm so tired of sanding and polishing...

[Ailurus]

I just ordered a disc sander, because I'm so tired of sanding and polishing...

It arrived last week, it really is a useful tool . I tweaked the casting process some more; when using pewter with 95% tin, it works fine now. I made a new set of meeples, and some other stuff (big meeple with an embedded Neodymium magnet, some dragons... )





If anybody would like to order some stuff, please send me a PM . Shipping costs to the USA are 2,85 Euro up to 100 gram, 5,70 Euro up to 250 gram. An entire set (14 meeples, so 8 normal, 1 large, 1 mayor, 1 farm, 1 pig, 1 builder, 1 wagon) weighs about 200 gram.