Work on Weasel Town has been plodding along slowly and now that the nice weather has started I can work outside. Originally the floor ducking (correct word?) was laser cut card but since I no longer have access to a good laser machine I have started 3D printing them. Work had stalled because of a lack of them. The home laser I have lack power because it is a cheap Chinese tube and it’s life has expired. My Blender skills and confidence have improved a tiny bit so I used it to created the ducking which I then printed out on my Ender 3.

One regret is that I didn’t look at my original card tiles as they are slightly more elegant. Mind you once they are coated in mud and grime and observed from three feet away I don’t thing anyone will be criticising the design aesthetic.

I had started designing modular tiles as way to to have a flexible tabletop. One lesson I have learnt, is to to be consistent. That way I could have integrated my ruined desert city tiles with the trench system. Possibly the way to go is to make a series of risers so the tile heights match up.

The reason I had started going modular was because of this Kickstarter.

However by the time I actually get the book I probably will have moved on to something else, rendering it redundant.

Anyway, grumbling aside, The author Michael Martin has a Youtube channel. TWS Tabletop Workshop. One of the videos was about making a diy crackle paste.

The ingredients were diatomaceous earth. This looked interesting as I want parched earth for my terrain tiles. Amazon had some but it was a touch out of my budget. Which let’s politely say is near zero.

Owning pets sometimes has an upside. We needed cat litter for our seventeen year old cat. She spends her days curled up on our bed and doesn’t venture out much. We had got a new brand which looked soil like. After she had used it, she is a prolific pisser, the litter started to crackle when dried. Interesting. Are you pondering what I’m pondering? I took some clean litter mixed a bit with PVA and stuck it on a piece of MDF. The result was really good. I then mixed up some more and applied it to one of my terrain tiles.

I have to experiment now and work out proportions so that consistency is maintained.

https://www.mueller.de/p/pet-bistro-klumpstreu-2572035/

This is a link to the product and for eight litres I think that is a pretty good price. The only ingredient is Bentonite which is an absorbent swelling clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite (a type of smectite).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentonite

I will report back with further information.

And tomorrow, if you are lucky, I will post some painting and reflect on life with eleven cats.