Leven Miniatures

[Pruneau]

I decided to leave the windows and doors as plain openings to allow the user to create their own mullion/transoms or door panel detailing etc. I found that creating window and door detail on the model limited the usage of the building for particular eras. As with real life, over the lifetime of a building, the structure usually remains the same but the window detail changes with the period etc. ie pre-16th century leaded glass progressed to such as Victorian double hung sash, to modern picture windows, and nowadays to UPVC etc - this way, changes can be made with a paint brush (hope I didn't bore you but you get the idea).

Good points about the windows.  as far as troops inside buildings are concerned, I do that a lot in city fighting.  I have a set of damaged buildings that allow this.  If you cast in one piece it will be hard to do, I suppose.  Unless you can make the roofs separate and cast the buildings hollow... Not sure if others use buildings in this way.  I remember getting a series of buildings for 10 mm once and I wasn't even able to get one square inch unit in.

[Fenton]

Good points about the windows.  as far as troops inside buildings are concerned, I do that a lot in city fighting.  I have a set of damaged buildings that allow this.  If you cast in one piece it will be hard to do, I suppose.  Unless you can make the roofs separate and cast the buildings hollow... Not sure if others use buildings in this way.  I remember getting a series of buildings for 10 mm once and I wasn't even able to get one square inch unit in.

Solid buildings have never been an issue for myself, I have always used a footprint round the building the width of a stand to show who is in the building and on what facing, over the years I think I have decided that jostling troops in the inside of buildings is too much trouble

EDIT: Quote fixed.

[mollinary]

Mick,

Welcome!  Went to your site and loved it, particularly the industrial stuff.  I wargame in the mid nineteenth century period, and things like sugar factories and brick works seem to abound.  Any ideas as to what a mid 19th century Brick works would look like? Although I game in 10mm, most of the buildings I use are 6mm, I like more buildings in the same footprint. I would second the call for churches, they are the real multi-purpose models, covering hundreds of years. But I haven't seen one with the two angled spire so common in Europe.  Looking for these both for 1866 (Chlum, lots of pics on the web) and for 1870 Gravelotte and Mars-le-Tour.  But beware, frequent this forum too long and you'll have a list of new items from here to eternity!

Mollinary

[Pruneau]

Solid buildings have never been an issue for myself, I have always used a footprint round the building the width of a stand to show who is in the building and on what facing, over the years I think I have decided that jostling troops in the inside of buildings is too much trouble

EDIT: Quote fixed.

I see what you mean, and it's a good idea for freestanding houses, but I'm paticularly interested in the normandy houses for 44 city fighting, and it's gonna be hard to have that footprint.  A two part structure, with the roof off revealing a flat surface would be workable though.  No need for hollow casting, just two parts so I can take the roof off and put units on top.

[Techno]

Shoot me down in flames as I'm nowhere near 'up to speed' on resin castings.
But if 'hollow' buildings were required, might it be easier for the manufacturer to produce the buildings as 'flat packs?'
Front wall, back wall, two side walls and the roof ?
OK..they'd need assembly...but I imagine that wouldn't be too time consuming.

There's probably a blatantly obvious answer to why they're not made like this, which my sleepy brain can't fathom at the moment. (extra production costs perhaps ...more fragile when transporting ?)

Just a thought though.

Cheers - Phil

[Sunray]

Shoot me down in flames as I'm nowhere near 'up to speed' on resin castings.
But if 'hollow' buildings were required, might it be easier for the manufacturer to produce the buildings as 'flat packs?'
Front wall, back wall, two side walls and the roof ?
OK..they'd need assembly...but I imagine that wouldn't be too time consuming.

There's probably a blatantly obvious answer to why they're not made like this, which my sleepy brain can't fathom at the moment. (extra production costs perhaps ...more fragile when transporting ?)

Just a thought though.

Cheers - Phil

Interesting point Phil.  I think the answer lies in the fact that Leven was developed in the 6mm world.  This is micro scale.  The culture was and is to cast solid as building were small and fiddly. Mick's taken 6mm to a new level as he avoids the thick 4mm base that many 1/300 buildings sit on.
Having said that, ALL resin buildings that I have played with up to 25mm have been solid.  We took it as read that that was how buildings were made.  I have a set of 6mm card villages that sit very cleverly on a ruin version, but this was card and not resin.

I suspect that only factor in casting flat pack walls and roofs is...the extra cost incurred in sculpture, casting and more packaging.

Who knows, now that the request has been flagged up, demand will open the market?

Sunray out

EDIT: Quote fixed.

[Pruneau]

Flat packs would definitely works for me.  Side panels could be very very simple, we just need fronts and rears.  I have been experimenting with making fronts for 10 mm normandy houses, with some success, but the making of silicon moulds proved very hard, and I now use open destroyed buildings ost of the time... But the look of a Normandy street nót blown to smithereens would be a great sight.

Here where I was at...

http://secondsquadonme.blogspot.be/2011/02/second-attempt-at-making-modular-10-mm.html

[OldenBUA]

One problem with thin resin sheets could be warping? I have some N-scale resin building kits from Artitec, and they suffer from this to some extent.

[Techno]

One problem with thin resin sheets could be warping? I have some N-scale resin building kits from Artitec, and they suffer from this to some extent.

That's a damn good point !!
Maybe that's the reason.
Cheers - Phil.

[Hertsblue]

Flat packs would definitely works for me.  Side panels could be very very simple, we just need fronts and rears.  I have been experimenting with making fronts for 10 mm normandy houses, with some success, but the making of silicon moulds proved very hard, and I now use open destroyed buildings ost of the time... But the look of a Normandy street nót blown to smithereens would be a great sight.

Here where I was at...

http://secondsquadonme.blogspot.be/2011/02/second-attempt-at-making-modular-10-mm.html

If you're going to go down that route, Rudy, surely it would be more economic to make an entire street as one unit? The whole thing would be stronger and you could still have individual roofs. 

Having said that, your initial experiments look good to me. 

[Pruneau]

If you're going to go down that route, Rudy, surely it would be more economic to make an entire street as one unit? The whole thing would be stronger and you could still have individual roofs. 

Having said that, your initial experiments look good to me. 

Yeah, in the end the idea wold be to make combinations of these bits and create larger fronts.  But, to be honest, I struggled with the windows - might have an alternative now, and it was a lot of work.  The idea would be to glue / putty parts together, put some plastercon the stones so the show through here and there, and in the end cast larger parts, like a few houses.  The roofs were hard to design though, as I have no real experience in the matter.

[levenminiatures]

Hi all - loving all the comments and suggestions.
Re flat packs - it's certainly worth looking into for 10mm.
I agree, large 'thin' resin panels do tend to warp due to the heat generated during curing, but the main problem here is they are rather brittle - (just drop one on a hard surface and see). The panels for a typical 10mm Normandy house would still need to be min 4mm thick to create the necessary strength, and creating a mitre on the sides for joining may pose a slight air bubble problem during casting, plus the roofs would need to be solid triangular blocks. - Now you've got me thinking ... am off in the workshop - see you all later.

[FierceKitty]

Hi all - loving all the comments and suggestions.
Re flat packs - it's certainly worth looking into for 10mm.
I agree, large 'thin' resin panels do tend to warp due to the heat generated during curing, but the main problem here is they are rather brittle - (just drop one on a hard surface and see). The panels for a typical 10mm Normandy house would still need to be min 4mm thick to create the necessary strength, and creating a mitre on the sides for joining may pose a slight air bubble problem during casting, plus the roofs would need to be solid triangular blocks. - Now you've got me thinking ... am off in the workshop - see you all later.

Drop a solid resin casting on a hard surface and you'll wish you hadn't! I speak from sad experience.

[Hertsblue]

The sad fact is that the technique lends itself more to plastic than resin. Don't know anyone who does such a thing though. 

[Techno]

Sadly....
Even for something as 'simple' and flat as a wall, it would still be horribly pricey to produce something in plastic Ray.
The tooling costs wouldn't be as awful as they would be compared to making plastic men, but they'd still be way too high for most people.
Cheers - Phil.