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Mountain Fortress

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2020 12:40 am
by David Kuijt
Mountain Fortress (camp) for my Empire of the Apes Fantasy Triumph army.

Here are the parts:

Mountains (front view)
IMG_1432.JPG
IMG_1432.JPG (1.07 MiB) Viewed 5799 times
Mountains (angled view)
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IMG_1430.JPG (902.97 KiB) Viewed 5799 times
Building pieces lying flat
IMG_1429 mod.jpg
IMG_1429 mod.jpg (660.69 KiB) Viewed 5799 times
Building pieces upright
IMG_1428 mod.jpg
IMG_1428 mod.jpg (644 KiB) Viewed 5799 times

Re: Mountain Fortress

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2020 12:42 am
by David Kuijt
And here are some pics of how the pieces go together:

Left side view
IMG_1426.JPG
IMG_1426.JPG (708.66 KiB) Viewed 5799 times
Right side view
IMG_1425.JPG
IMG_1425.JPG (820.56 KiB) Viewed 5799 times
View of the upper courtyard and access to the watchtower
IMG_1427.JPG
IMG_1427.JPG (666.32 KiB) Viewed 5799 times

Re: Mountain Fortress

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2020 12:58 am
by David Kuijt
Materials:
  • One piece of scrap 2x4 lumber, about 8" long
  • A hunk of scrap 2" thick pink insulation a bit bigger than my hand with fingers spread
  • A scrap piece of 1/8" MDF for the base
  • Some 1/16" craft sticks
  • A few pieces of scrap balsa wood
Tools:
  • Exacto knife (#11 blade)
  • Tablesaw
  • I forget the name of it saw -- not a jigsaw, as it is a table mount, but I used it to cut the MDF to shape
  • Good (draw-cut) handsaw
  • Big snap-blade utility knife
  • Wood chisels, 1/4" and 1/2"
  • Sanding block
Steps:
  • I cut the 2x4 to a very slight bevel on the tablesaw. The bevel is on three sides of the 2x4. Don't try this at home unless you are very good with a tablesaw, or you want to be called "<insert name here> of the Nine Fingers". There's safe ways to do it, but if you take shortcuts, you won't be able to count to 10 any more without taking your socks off.
  • Then I chopped the top off the beveled 2x4 to make the angled front piece, and beveled a scrap cutoff to make the tower by hand (chisel, utility knife, and sanding).
  • Moved the front piece around until I figured what looked good, then chopped into it using the handsaw, cleaning up the join with the chisel.
  • Marked the windows on some graph paper, cut them out with the exacto knife, then traced them on the buildings. Cut on the lines with the chisels to make windows with angled bottoms, and to indent the doors. Same for the big front door.
  • Glued craft sticks to make the decorative window tops and door tops, then cut them to length and glued them in place. Same for the rails on the balconies
  • Cut the mountains out with utility knife, detailing with the exacto knife
  • Mark the buildings on the mountains, then cut the holes out so the buildings fit into the mountains.
Painting tomorrow.

Re: Mountain Fortress

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2020 2:04 am
by Texus Maximus
This looks great! I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out. That is some careful planning you did, getting all that to fit together. What was your inspiration?

Re: Mountain Fortress

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2020 8:30 am
by chris6
Wow, that wooden fortress is great!

Re: Mountain Fortress

Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2020 1:23 am
by Gregorius
It's going to look spectacular when finiished David. So what will be the stronghold's footprint?

Cheers,

Re: Mountain Fortress

Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2020 10:33 am
by David Kuijt
Gregorius wrote:
Sun Aug 16, 2020 1:23 am
It's going to look spectacular when finiished David. So what will be the stronghold's footprint?
Not sure; I didn't measure it. It's base is approximately the size of two of my fists, which works well for an army on 80mm wide bases.

Re: Mountain Fortress

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 9:50 pm
by David Kuijt
Here's the finished fortress.

I had to repaint it three times; the first two just didn't look right.
IMG_1435 trimmed.jpg
IMG_1435 trimmed.jpg (1.1 MiB) Viewed 5620 times
Note the decorative nail heads used as door bosses.

attachment=0]IMG_1434 trimmed.jpg[/attachment]

Re: Mountain Fortress

Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2020 11:38 pm
by Gregorius
Nice one David. There seems to be a happy accident (a Bob Ross moment) in that the right hand side of the mountain looks to have facial features.

Cheers,

Re: Mountain Fortress

Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2020 12:08 am
by David Kuijt
Gregorius wrote:
Sun Aug 23, 2020 11:38 pm
Nice one David. There seems to be a happy accident (a Bob Ross moment) in that the right hand side of the mountain looks to have facial features.
"Facial features" has a much looser and more flexible definition in Australia, it seems... :)