Project: Harken Keep to scale.

[the-golem]

Not sure were I should put this, so I picked General as a safe bet.

I'm in the process of constructing a "full-scale" (1"-5'-0") model of the Harken(/Iron) Keep featured in the Reavers of Harkenwold: The Die is Cast module.

I thought it'd be fun to post pictures and updates of my progress, I hope that's alright.

... I don't have any pictures yet, but they'll be coming.

 

[Klaus]

Looking forward to it!

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Sounds like a plan!

 

[the-golem]

It's a little slow going, but I should have the first tower pictures up either sometime tomorrow or Sunday.

... I had a much longer reply, but in the middle of it, I accidentally used this tab to search for something, and lost everything I wrote. At any rate...

Supplies for 1 tower include 1 sheet of craft Styrofoam (1"x12"x36")
From this, I cut out eight 3" strips. Each strip I in turn cut into lengths of 3" (the tower walls are 15ft long on each side), 3", 5", and 1". I did this because the towers have two levels, and I wanted to pull off the top layer so that the players can see into the lower level.

After cutting the styro down into those individual lengths, I did some quick math to figure out the necessary angles to trim these blocks so that they actually line up in an octogon when pieced together.

After getting the general shaping out of the way, I had to read the descriptions carefully as well as look at the pictures to get the height of things pretty accurate. I then either cut out, or added on, so that each wall section looked "about right"

Gluing the pieces together is a bit unwieldy, as the craft lady sold me some glue "made for styrofoam" ( Hold the Foam Adhesive Product Details ). It works, quite well actually, but it takes a loooooong time to set. When this tube runs out, I'll shop around until I find me som 3M Spray Adhesive for Styrofoam.

Because I just moved, I had a small "tub" of spackling on hand, so I then commenced to spackling a very thin layer overtop the foam. I'm glad I did this, because I think it'd take the paint better in the next step, and wont look so much like styrofoam.

As I said before, pictures to come!

 

[Pseudonym]

My group is about to make their way inside the keep so I'm really interested in this.

 

[the-golem]

Wow. Threads in this category go off the first page pretty quickly.

Here are two photoes of my progress. The tower is pretty much done, but I ran out of spackling, and I don't want to finish gluing the tower pieces together until I run out and get some more. The upper level is glued together and spackled, although I need to spackle the most recent joints.

The lower level only has one section spackled, this is when I ran out. In the second photo, you can tell which parts are spackled and which aren't. Also, I haven't put in any floors yet, as I'm unsure what material to use. I'm thinking a 1/4 inch plywood, but whatever material I pick, it needs to be sturdy enough that it doesnt give much, but light enough to move around. Opinions on this? If you're wondering why the tower has a large chunk cut out of the bottom section, it is because those wall sections are partially on the exterior of the castle, and partially on the interior. The interior grounds are ten feet above the ground outside the castle.

Thanks for keeping interested!

PS: If the images are too large. Let me know and I'll place smaller ones in their stead.

 

[Gilladian]

Wow! That's going to be one enormous castle!

Have you thought about using foamcore for your floors?

Another possible choice would be balsa/basswood sheets. You want to keep it fairly light, I expect...

 

[the-golem]

Wow! That's going to be one enormous castle!

Have you thought about using foamcore for your floors?

Another possible choice would be balsa/basswood sheets. You want to keep it fairly light, I expect...

Yes, it will be. I have to figure out how to fasten the two floors together so that they don't move around unless I want them too. I'm thinking maybe wooden dowels?

Balsa would be much to soft for the thickness I'm looking at, but they do make some really thin bass-ply-wood sheets that would be perfect. Unfortunately, that'd be too expensive. I'd want the interior floor of the castle to be one solid sheet, and they don't make anything that big, as far as I'm aware. I might be able to find a super thin ply at Home Depot or something though.

Foamcore is pretty nice, and doesn't warp too easily, but I'm not sure if its got quite the amount of stiffness I want. Although, it'd be easy to position trees or whatever on it...

To get a rough idea of the scale, I cut out some cardboard segments in the rough dimensions of the inside grounds. For perspective, that shiny object is a quarter, which is about 1 inch in diameter. The US Dollar is six inches long, and about 2.5 inches wide.

Since I'm not sure if everyone has seen Harken Keep, here's a scan I did of it. As you can see, there are three such towers I've already done, plus two other towers.

I have no idea what I'm going to do to texture the floors, or how I'm going todo the interior walls. Or the "nature" stuff. Heh.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Looking good so far. And thanks for the floorplan, I don't think I've ever seen it.

 

[the-golem]

This is completely odd. I put in another post to this yesterday, but it seems to not be here. Ah well.

I bought some spackle yesterday, so I should be able to start working again. ;D