Hirst Arts caddy for Magic the Gathering decks

An update on Sarid and Theo's wedding and the adventures in Belgium and the Netherlands may be added later, in the meantime here is how the model for their wedding came together.

 

Hirst Arts produce silicon molds for making plaster casts of bricks and architectural features for wargaming scenery.  I had been thinking of trying them out for a couple of years, but never quite had the enthusiasm, or the ideas, to try them.

A few months ago inspiration hit me - during a game of Magic the Gathering I thought it might be an idea to make a deck caddy to hold the cards during a game. Also, with Theo and Sarid's wedding coming up this gave me an idea for a unique gift for them.

#54 Gothic Church
#55 Bell Tower

#50 Wizard's Tower Mold

#40 Basic Block Mold                   

I'd originally picked up the first two, as each is a neat project in it's own right, but for what I wanted I thought the elements of the two models would be easily modified to fit the design I had in mind.
After a weekend casting with those two, I ordered the #50 and #40 molds to help bulk out the basic bricks.

I had some fun finding a source of the plaster here in Toulouse, partly due to translation issues and partly to find a decent quality material that was recommended.  Fortunately, I found just the place, and then promptly spent the best part of two weekend casting bricks...

These are (still) sorted into piles on the floor of my spare room, although I have a few ideas to use them up.

With the bricks ready, I could start designing the caddy.  My first prototype was using simple bricks to check the scale.  This included two sections, one for the 'library' and one for the 'graveyard' discard stack.

Dry-fit prototype to check sizes and layout (each basic 'brick' is 1" long, by 1/2" high and 1/2" deep)

Boring plain wall, but it's to get the scale right!

View of cards inside:

Dry fit seemed to work, so these were glued together.  The interlocking seen above was ignored; the prototype was made in flat sections then assembled - although not as strong, the glue is good enough to not need the interlock strength.  Using this approach allows each section to be made using Lego formers to ensure everything is square.

My original idea for the final model was that the long wall would be one side of a church nave, with the end walls also having some arch designs.

Some dry-fit planning:

Short wall (end piece)

Long wall:

On the day I started assembly the wall sections using this design, I had a game of MtG with Theo (without telling him what I was doing, of course!) and realised I had made a slight error in my planning...

As well as the two bays already designed, I also needed a third for exiled cards.

D'oh.

I modified the design so the 'church' covered only one of the bays, to hold the library stack.  The other two bays would be small walled areas, like a graveyard or similar.

The modified wall sections were easy to make, as shown below:

The model base will be 3mm polystyrene plastic card, and PVA glue.

The library stack area has a plastic card base added.  This holds the cards at a slight angle, and is sized to make it easy to draw cards:

With the assembled walls I found a few large unsightly gaps that the glue had not filled.  These were filled with milliputt (a two-part epoxy putty) that can be sculpted like clay, and dries hard.

With the assembly complete, time to paint.

Undercoat:  Since the plaster is white, any areas not covered would show up on the final model. The undercoat was black acrylic paint, thinned slightly to ensure it ran into the deep gaps.

Base coat: Using the same acrylics, a 50/50 mix of black and white was used, with a touch of blue to simulate granite.  This was applied using the dry brushing (more a "wet brushing" as I wanted a fairly good coverage of everything except the deeper recessed areas). 

Dry brushing is a quick way of adding an exaggerated light shade of the base coat.  Most of the paint is wiped off the brush (so it is dry, geddit?) and then lightly brushed on.  This means the paint is only applied to the outer surfaces, not the recesses.  By applying successive lighter coats (both in terms of shade and brush pressure).

I used a 25/75 black/white mix (again with a little blue) which was dry brushed over, followed by a lighter coat using more white in the mix.

A final very pale grey highlight was added on the sharp edges.

A couple of grave stones were also added, painted in the same way.

The "grass" is Games Workshops static grass flock material, scattered over PVA glue.
Finally, I added a sheet of cork to the underside to protect the table top.

My original plan was to add some suitably Gothic miniatures in the window arches; however I was unable to find something I liked the look of, and instead printed some stained glass windows, trimmed to fit and glued in place.
 

Of course I had to check the cards fit...

Phew.

Except that, as both Sarid and Theo play Magic, one wasn't going to be enough...so I made a second in a different colour (and slightly different architecture trimmings)...

The last-but-one job was to varnish the model with a coat of varnish, then to finish I made a box to put the models in to transport them to the wedding!

Postscript:
Both models made it to the wedding in one piece, and Theo and Sarid were pleased with them.  I'm already planning the next model - a tile holder for Carcassonne pieces

Eurotour 2012 - Part Two - Blighty and Beyond

Right.  Yes.  I realised there was a Part One to my trip report from the summer, but I never completed it. So this is the second part of the journey.  (Part One can be found here)

Last time, I had just arrived back home in Somerset.  I spent a week with Mum, catching up with friends in the area and taking Beaky up to Bristol for a well-deserved 6k service (although closer to 8k on the mileage!).

From here, I left to meet up with friends in Petersfield on the way to the Eurostar, catching u with James, Gemma and little Reuben.

The Eurostar crossing was as fast and efficient as before, and I passed the 30 minutes chatting to some other bikers heading to Italy.

A quick run through northern France into Belgium, and finally arrived at Trish and Neiks.  I spent a few days here, catching up on news and playing Settlers of Catan and enjoying the local beers. Great fun!

One place I wanted to visit whilst in the area was Waterloo - I hadn't realised how close it was, and it made an easy day trip from Deinze.

The battlefield has a pretty good tourist centre, which explains the background to events, and runs a bus tour around the site.  Having watched Sharpe, it was interesting to see a slightly less -UK bias on events!

View across to the Lion's Mound from the East, along the British lines.

Close up of the Lion's Mound.

On the way back to Deinze from Waterloo, I wanted to stop at the Atomium, as last year I hadn't gone inside.

Where's Beaky?

A better view of Mini-Europe...without Beaky.

 Good to see an A380!

A few familiar sights from the UK...

 Time to move on again, this time to Halsteren again and a stay at Theo and Sarid's. I spent a few days here, catching up on news and playing Settlers of Catan Magic and enjoying the local beers. Great fun!

I also had a chance to meet up with Lily in Zaltbommel again - just so the Hobblings didn't start to feel left out.

Whilst in Haslteren I explored the coast to the west, and also the De Biesbosch National Park. Very, very flat land as expected, and a chance for Beaky to have her first boat ride on the ferry across to Dordrecht.

The lure of Settlers of Catan games was strong, and so I stopped at Deinze before beginning the journey home.

A quick stop on the way through Luxembourg for a photo - not enough time to explore on this trip.

I stopped for the night at Luneville in France and found a little camping ground near the Chateau de Luneville.  First night in the tent on this trip, and yup, you guessed it - thunderstorms overnight.  The tent held up well, and everything stayed dry, although Beaky was looking soggy in the morning.  A quick breakfast in the local patisserie, and on the road again.
 
Neik had recommended the town of Riquewihr in France as worth visiting, so I aimed for here on the way  south.  Well worth the visit, and a nice place for lunch.

 

Next stop...Switzerland!  Crossing the border at Basel, it transpired I needed a vignette to use the toll roads.  Since I had entered on one of these (and a man with a gun was insistent...) I ended up shelling out €30 on this, despite not really wanting it.  Next time, I'll plan the route to avoid needing one.


The other thing not helping my mood at this point was the rain.  It was like riding through Wales. Nice views, I think.  Hard to tell with heavy rain and a low cloud base.  I decided I needed somewhere warmer and drier than the tent, and checked into a hotel in Lucerne.

Next morning the rain had eased a little, and I was able to see something of Lake Lucerne (although the rain meant no photos!)

My original plan was to head east to Lichtenstein, and cross into Austria just to say I'd been there.  With the rain as it was, and with a planned stop in Geneva I decided to leave that for another time.  Instead, there were two places I did want to visit - Altdorf and Meiringen. 

I decided to head over to Altdorf  first (Warhammer players will understand why), and found a little town with the famous William Tell statue. I'd forgotten this was where the story was from, obviously the RNG in me was telling me something.

Looking at the map and plotting a route to Meiringen I decided the wiggly road across the Sustenstrasse looked far more interesting than the autoroute back to Lucerne and around.

"Interesting".  Right.

In terms of a gnarly road over a mountain pass, it was great fun.  I was even ready for the drop in temperature (having planned something like this whilst in Switzerland) and had a few warmer clothes to put on under the jacket.

As I climbed up, I found some amazing views of snow covered mountains.  Snow?  Yup. In August.

Below is the road ahead from the same spot, with the now-familiar Beaky.

 

What I hadn't reckoned was that the temperature would drop to -3 degrees and that the rain would turn to heavy snow.  This was a little more than I was prepared for, and wiping the snow build-up from the visor whilst winding around narrow roads with minimal markings or barriers on a mountain was tense.

I was also starting to get cold.

Bloody cold!

Luckily I crossed over the pass without incident, but was not able to find somewhere to stop until I reached Meiringen and stumbled into a cafe looking pretty miserable.

Once I warmed up I was ready for the reason I came here - Reichenbach Falls. This is the location for Sherlock Holmes fight with Professor Moriarty, in The Final Problem.

To reach them there is a little funicular railway, and as we climbed up the mountain, the falls appeared out of the rain.

The falls themselves - the location of the fight is said to be to the right, about halfway up.  Yeah, right!

Onward again...this time to Geneva and another Hobbling. Nadine had offered to have me stay over on the way past, so I found her flat just out of town but over the border in France.  She and a friend took me to a Swiss restaurant for fondue - very nice!

My final day, and the longest stretch yet.  420 miles from Geneva to Toulouse.

I left at 10am, expecting the trip to take about six hours (well, a little more with fuel stops etc).

Unfortunately Beaky had other ideas.

A problem with the remote sensor on the key fob meant that every time I stopped, it was a while  before the system decided to accept the key and allow me to continue.


To cut a long story short, we limped home and I arrived home close to midnight.

Still, not to let a downer like that spoil the trip - it was great and so much fun to catch up with a variety of friends old and new.

Total distance covered was around 3,500 miles.

Map of my route:


View Larger Map


Post script:
Beaky's electrical problem resolved itself after the battery drained overnight (the lights would stay on even with the key removed!), and BMW were unable to find a fault.  Apparently some fuel stations have a device that somehow upsets the security chip in the key. A ccolleague at work had seen a similar problem, although for her the problem goes as soon as the bike is pushed away from the pumps!

A Beaky Adventure - Beaky and the Pont du Diable

Back to a trip report today, folks.

After a few weekends of fairly wet weather, looking out and seeing sun this morning meant I didn't hang about getting out on the road.

I wanted to head down to the reservoir Etang du Soulcem, one of my favourite spots in the Pyranees.  I wasn't surprised, however, to find snow in the area, and in the end turned around just before reaching Auzat - some snow on the ground still, a wet road and temperatures dropping to below freezing.

On the way home I took the D88 that follows the route of the newer N20 dual-carriage way for a more itneresting road.  I spotted the sign to the "pont du diable" just before Saint-Antoine, and was glad I did.

Apparenetly the bridge was built to house a mill wheel, hence the building at one end.

 

The approach to the bridge

 View from the bridge upstream

  and downstream...

 Another view over the bridge

View of the bridge with the building remains

Being Geeky Part II

Or "Sorry to everyone expecting tales of Beaky's Adventures but have you seen the weather out there?"

After the success of the previous PC upgrade to the SSD recently, I was pleased when a box arrived with the anticipated graphics card and power unit.

First thought was...I knew the card was big, but couldn't they have found a better size box?!

It's in there somewhere...are you hiding?  Novatech sure package things well.

And the new toys finally dug out of the packing peanuts.

The Asus card has to be the most expensive-feeling packaging I have ever seen on anything - including jewellery.

So, with the new components looking as though they survived the shipping to France, it was time to start ripping things apart.

Since this was the first time I had done anything like this, I figured being able to put everything back together as I found it might be useful, so labelled all the cables I unplugged as I disconnected the power cables.

After a while, out with the old...

And in with the new...note the size of the new card comared to the old one above on the right.  No, I wasn't sure if it was going to fit yet.

New power and graphics card installed, and it all fitted! Now to see if it works...

It's ALIVE!

A quick install of the card software and everything is working well.

Oh yeah baby!

Previous score was 5.1 on the two graphics criteria :)

So that's that little project completed without major problems.

What's next?

Being Geeky

After a little deliberation, I decided to replace my PC's boot drive with an SSD.  I'd heard good things about these - the premise being the read/write speed is much higher, allowing faster access to the OS, programs and (more importantly) games.

I ended up spending most of lat Saturday on the swap - 30 minutes on the HDD/SDD swap and the rest of the day reinstalling Windows 7 and all my software.  The only problem was self-inflicted - I forgot a password for the Final Fantasy XI game (sorted later!).

Benefits of the new SSD...boot time is much faster -  about 3 seconds between logging into Windows and being able to run programs...programs open far faster...games are running smoother. And that is just by having the OS and games installed on the SSD. I haven't changed any other hardware. 

Now I'm just waiting for the new GPU, CPU and RAM...that'll be next weekend's project (well, I ahve to do something whilst it's cold outside, right?)

Review of 2012

I know, I know, it's  bit late to do this, but better late than never, right?

2012 started with the anniversary of losing Dad suddenly. I often wonder what he would have made of my motorcycle adventures, with some of the stories he'd told us of his own trips - and I've yet to try this...

Dad crossing a ford, probably Exmoor, pre-1977.

 
The biggest thing in 2012 for me was the move to France. A new job, new home, (and a new Beaky!) and by far the biggest change I'd made in a while.

The move down to Toulouse could not have gone better, with a load of people helping to make the transition as easy as possible - friends and colleagues (old and new!) at both ends, the mobility team at Airbus, the relocation contact at CSE Mobilitie, Langdons Removals.

Beaky in the removal van.

One of the selling points of the move was the opportunity to explore the south west of France.  I've been remiss in updating the blog much telling those adventures, but a few highlights were:

• Easter weekend in Nimes and Arles exploring the Roman sites
• Bordeau, and the dunes.
• Summer holiday spending three weeks seeing the UK, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland. 
• Various trips around the Ariege region - beautiful scenery.
• Castles galore.
• fun in the snow

I covered something like 14,000 miles, most of them trouble-free (we don't talk about the return trip from Geneva and the Evil Petrol Station of Doom). One puncture (possibly a result of riding down through an area of roadworks near my home as it looked muddy...). Two sets of tyres and no idea how many tanks of fuel.

In all those miles, I had one close call with a car side swiping me that left the car more damaged than Beaky...and I stayed upright.

 Leaving the best news to last, I became an uncle for the first time.  Artan was born six weeks premature just after I moved to France.

My nephew and his Very Proud Dad.

Since then he's grown...and grown...and is now doing all the things a seven month old baby should be doing.  His parents (my brother and his wife) are about to move into their first house, so even bigger changes for them in 2012!

So, onwards with 2013, and may the Adventures continue!

A Beaky Adventure - Beaky on Ice

Whilst on my ski adventure, I realised I had left the video camera mount at home, so was unable to get any footage of the snow.

So, obviously, the thing to do was go out again and record some.  In the snow.  Yeah, I was daft enough.

This trip stayed closer to home, and I headed over to Ax Les Thermes and up the Col de Pailheres taht I had been to before. This was where I had found a little snow earlier in the season, so figured it was a good spot to aim for.

The result was the following:

 
On seeing the snow plow being fitted with snow chains I decided to not go any farther and turned around (as you see at the end of the video).  However, part way down the hill I regretted my decision and wanted to try farther, so went up the nearby Col du Chioula until I decided I had pushed my luck enough for one day...

A fun ride out, but probably the daftest thing I have ever done!

A Beaky Adventure - Cooold

...or fun in the snow.

Just before Christmas I had a couple of weekends enjoying the snow around the Pyranees.  Well, I say enjoying...in hindsight it was all great fun, but at the time I was thinking this was some of the most bat-shit crazy things I had done.

The first weekend at the start of December a group of friends invited me to join them skiing. I'd wanted to try this whilst in Toulouse.  The only time I had trie skiing was on a dry slope in teh UK when I was at school, on a course over five days.  I managed to finish the last day by chipping a couple of teeth and almost breaking my arm - but figured I'd be okay on soft snow.

The plan originally was to head to Ax Les Thermes, which is only an hour or so away from Toulouse. I wanted some photos of Beaky in the snow (don't ask) so said I'd ride down with them in the Mystery Machine. This wasn't as stupid as it sounded, as I had been to  Andorra in the snow back in April when I arrived in France, and knew the roads were kept pretty clear.

All well and good, except we ended up leaving 30 minutes earlier (at 6:30am) and heading over the Pyranees into Spain to ski at Baqueira. 

This was cold.

Very cold.

Beaky was showing the air temp to be -11 degrees C as we passed the valley into the Spanish border; I've no idea what the wind chill effect was.  Luckily the roads were clear of snow and dry, so there was no danger from ice.

I'd also managed to lose my friends in the Mystery Machine on the autoroute, so wasn't entirely sure where I was heading. Luckily I could find the village without any problems. On finding a promising looking car park (filled with SUVs and vans being unlaoded of ski gear) I got a few odd looks as I found somewhere to park. 

Usually my tactic to parking in France is to find other bikes and park with them, on the basis that the locals know what they are doing.  For some strange reason, there were no other motorbikes around...I couldn't imagine why!

After defrosting with a cup of coffee, I found my friends, geared up and enjoyed a day on teh slopes.  Kelly joined me on the bambi slopes, and gave me a few pointers whilst I tried not to kill myself or start an avalaunche.

I could just about walk at the end of the day, then had the fun of riding back down the mountain to our hotel in the dark.

The next day I skipped the skiing, as I wanted to get some photos and ride home in daylight.  Another cold trip, but not as bad as the previous day!

A few photos:

The standard Beaky-in-the-photo shot.  The slope opposite was the ski resort.

A view of the bambi slopes where I had spent the previous day.

A snowy field on the mountain opposite the ski resort.

The temperature up on the mountain.

Icicles!

Arty "Beaky Eyes Up the Road Ahead" shot.

First ski run...

How hard could this be? Having watched Ski Sunday and a few youtube videos, I knew that the white stuff was easier to ski on than the brown, grey or green stuff. 

After freezing my ass off getting to the ski resort and catching up with my friends (who had my ski kit in their van) there was a fun few minutes trying to remember some (any) Spanish so I could get a lift pass, skis (always useful), boots (ditto), poles (wtf  am I going to do with those!?) and a helmet (maybe in case someone skis into me?).

The first challenge was leaving the rental store wearing ski boots and steamed up glasses and carrying four things several feet long and each with a mind of its own.  Why they can't make doors wide enough to carry skis through width-wise I'll never know. Still, putting everything back onto the display gave the staff something to do as it was pretty quiet and I'm sure they can board the window up or something to stop the cold coming in.

Over to the gondola for the ride up the mountain to the main area. Not much to say here, other than a repeat of trying to get everything through a smaller gap this time with a moving surface on the other side to step onto.  Then rinse and repeat at the top. 

Skis on, and a slide over to the beginner's area so I can join the other Bambis and keep out of everyone's way.

First lesson: how to use the cable tow.  Fairly easy. As I was yanked up the hill, someone behind me said something about making sure I get off to the right for the beginners area, and not left to the Red run.  Or was that the other way around?  No clue, I was trying to hold to keep two skis pointing in vaguely the right direction (up hill)  whilst wrestling with the ski poles.

It really didn't matter which way I was meant to be going at the top...my skis chose for me and I was soon in the middle of the slope.  People were very friendly, all yelling encouragement at me as they swept past. Not sure exactly what was being said as it was all in Spanish or French, but lots of friendly waving.

The crocodile of kids all seemed to be able to move pretty quickly but alas, they may not have heard my thanks due to the distortion caused by the doppler affect as I accelerated onward,

As I descended the slope with arms, legs, poles and skis waving enough to make Bambi on ice look stable, it did occur to me that I thought the beginners slope hadn't looked anything like as long as this.  Or as steep.  Still, I was well on my way now.

I did wonder how one was meant to stop.  An experiment grabbing at a tree as a whooshed past wasn't successful, only managing to cause the snow on the tree to drop down on the poor fellow following me. Not sure why he didn't like that, it's not like he wasn't expecting snow up here.

I was able to stop courtesy of a snow bank, a crowd of children and a picnic table.

Time to find the bar.