Anyone do tabletop wargaming or have kids that like tin soldiers?
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One of my many hobbies is to make my children tin soldiers.
A long time ago when I was 10 I got a set to cast toy soldiers which I kept, I’ve also over recent years got myself new moulds, and some old Schneider molds.
Every now and then myself and the kids go to the works shop and cast some pewter soldiers to increase their ‘army’
I have now in excess of a dozen different mould and can cast things from Roman soldiers, to High Elf warriors, to medieval French and English knights to Napoleonic Soldiers and a couple of WWI soldiers from my Schneider moulds.
I visit charity shops and buy dented modern pewter items (Modern Pewter is lead free) and melt them down to use to case the soldiers.
The pictures below are from the Schneider moulds and one of my Napoleonic moulds, if anyone is interested I’m happy to make them for FTC, not sure what they will cost yet, but they will be very reasonable.
The soldiers in these photos are from some of my lowest quality moulds.
If anyone thinks they might be interested I will take photos of some of the better stuff.
I do love the fact that one of the oldest children’s toys can still take children’s interest in this modern age and my son takes great pride in telling his friends we made them.
I would be selling them fresh cast, cut from their sprue, but unfiled and unassembled so if you want to paint them its easier to do that, also unassembled makes them less prone to damage in the post
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Nice, you should hide them in the field and make metal detecting competition for kids :)
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:)
As a kid I made a metal detector from a kit and used to go down to my school on the weekend and find all the change that fell out of the other kids pockets playing at the swings and the lost matchbox cars in the sand pits. >:D
The metal detector paid for itself in under a month…
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So no interest?
Before I write off the whole idea I thought I would post some photos of some of the better moulds.
The first one is an English knight on Horseback, this one stands 80mm tall to the top of his helmet or 95mm to the top of the sword
French crossbow man, this stands 55mm tall.
The high elf stands 32mm tall
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There great where did you get the moulds? Could they be made?
Just got me thinking of minting real FTC coins. :) I’d buy one of those -
The moulds are actualy made in Ireland by a company called Prince August.
There is also a company in the USA that produces moulds but their name escapes me at the moment.
Making moulds for casting pewter is actually pretty easy if you have an item you want to copy.
You just buy the suitable RTV (Ready to vulcanise) silicon which can stand temperatures above what pewter gets to and make your own mould for it.
Plenty of how tos on the web about it.
