Bonus Video: Project Hindsight - MountainBlocks V2.0 || Magnetic, Interchangeable Facing and No Thick Foam.

It is DONE! The video is complete, the links are in place, the templates and STLs are uploaded and you guys can get on with building your own V2.0, massively improved mountainblocks!

I'll be available by Patreon message or on Discord as usual to answer any questions, but I'm hoping the video covered most corners - Make sure you post your work in discord if you feel like it though! I'd love to see this being made :)

With that, I'm going to get on with some side work for the next project, making more of these mountainblocks as I aim for them to be a backdrop to the next video...more on that soon...

Do let me know what you guys think, and I hope you all enjoy!

Pinned comment included below because people don't seem to realise it was there :)

*MASK SAFETY*
A few things we work with require good ventilation, a mask, or both.

HOT WIRE CUTTER
When using a hot wire cutter, solid ventilation can be enough. Open windows, and a desk fan next to the cutter that blows towards the window is enough in most circumstances - but if you struggle with this, or can smell it consistently - I would recommend wearing a filter mask (links in the equipment list).

The white smoke given off by the cutter is primarily CO2 and water vapor, which are far less harmful than other common art products like aerosols and paint thinners (or hairspray). The toxic values are far less than wood-smoke, which contains tars, resins, creosote, and acetic acid.

IF you burn the xps foam, rather than melt it, it gives off black smoke. This is toxic. Make sure you turn the cutter off if not cutting, and try to remove foam stuck to the wire with some scrap foam, rather than letting it burn up.

CUTTING/SANDING FOAM
When cutting or sanding foam, you want to be wearing at least a dust mask (though a filter mask will do) to avoid breathing in the dust. Always make sure to hoover up this dust once you're done.

GROUT
Always wear a dust mask when using grout, ventilate the area, and hoover it up once it settles. It is basically cement, you don't want to be breathing it in!

On a side note, try to wash your hands in a bucket and throw the water out, rather than washing it down the sink. A small amount probably wont do anything, but in excess in theory it can cause problems (again, because it's basically cement!)

BALSA WOOD
When scratching grain into balsa wood with a wire brush, wear a dust mask to avoid the sawdust. Fairly standard wood stuff.

GLUES AND SOLVENTS
Many things we use regularly (even home use) give off nasty fumes of some description - superglue, polystyrene cement (plastic glue), liquid latex, among others. For the most part, we don't work with these things for an extended enough period for this to be a problem, though following safety labels on products is of course important :)

As a general rule, I throw anything that 'smells' into this category - some are mostly harmless, but I aim for better safe than sorry!

Basic ventilation (opening a window) will usually be fine if working with them for a short period, but IF you intend to spend hours using one of these materials I would recommend solid ventilation, adding a desk fan, or even using outside.

MAGNET SAFETY:

Don’t use around small children or animals, if ingested these can be dangerous. Never let very strong magnets slam together, especially thin ones. They can and will smash under a lot of force, and then become very sharp, highly magnetic shrapnel. Not good. Easy to avoid though, just take care.

NICKLE STRIPS/STEEL TIN CAN TIPS AND SAFETY:

Nickel and Tin is safe enough to use if you're reasonably careful, I used to cut most of mine from tin can lids with scissors, though now I use nice smooth nickel strips.

Made sure you're wearing thick gloves when cutting and handling, I use some woodworking gloves.

If you want to make doubly sure the metal isn't sharp, use a metal nail file along the edges to round it off.


*DIMENSIONS*
Square blocks:
Square core piece 3x3x2"
Square attachment 3x3x1"
Rectangle attachment 6x3x1, 6x3x2" for the bulge
Sloped connection attachment 3x3x1 and 1/4"

Sloped blocks (ramp shape):
Sloped core piece 3x3x3" (cut as shown)
Sloped attachment 4.5x3x1"

Angled blocks (square with corner cut off):
Angled core piece (and foam jig) 3x3x3" (cut as shown)
Angled attachment 5x4.5" piece, 1 or 2" thick depending on bulge wanted

Sloped corner blocks (triangle corner):
sloped corner core piece 3x3x3 (cut as shown)
sloped corner attachment 5"x4.5" for a single attachment, or 6"x12" to tesselate 3 pieces on. 1" thick for mostly flat, or 2" thick for bulging.

Sloped edge covering:
This is the bit that covers the right angled triangle faces on the sloped or angled blocks if they're exposed.
Bulging piece 3x3x1"
Thin piece for use next to floor tiles 3x3x1/2" (cut as thin as possible at the bottom to accommodate)

Angled block jig:
36 degree angle for the sloped piece at the bottom. Can be cut from a 90 degree block as 54 degrees, which gives an offcut of 36 degrees - if you don’t have an angle cutter :)

Three 3/4 x 3 x 3 and 3/4 rectangle ish tiles to make the cube container…box….thing! You could make this 1/2x3x3 and 1/2", the reason for the length beyond 3" is directly related to the thickness of the scrap piece you use :)

*MEASURING IN MAGNET PLACEMENT*

SQUARE
These want to be in the middle, so measure 1 and 1/2" in along two edges from a corner, then measure another 1 and 1/2" into the middle.

For RECTANGLE sides (The 2" sides), you want to do the same thing, but pick a side for the magnets to be closer to, so they'll end up 1/2" from one side, and 1 and 1/2" from the other. Basically like it was a 3" block you cut 1" from :)

TRIANGLE
These need to be slightly tighter, 3/4" from the edge using the exact same method as the square, measure along two edges from a corner, then into the middle.

FACINGS
Estimate the middle. That’s literally what I do :) for the squarer facings you can measure of course, and the jig works perfectly for square facings, but for triangles I just drew lines from each point to the middle of the opposite side, and drilled in the middle.

*MAGNET TYPES*
6x4mm magnets:
• All square facings. All of them.
• All right angled triangle facings (for overhang strength)
• Both sides of the sloped block attachment facing for square blocks (the stone one with a gap for a triangle piece)
• ALMOST all non-right angle triangle facings (the ones that the texture attaches to). The exception is the texture facing side of the sloped corner block (the little pyramid)
• UNSEALED (paper towel stuffing) in the back of textured facings for removable magnetic accessory/model placement.

6x2mm magnets (with shallower hole for no flippability):
• ONLY the texture side (non-right angle) of the sloped corner block (the little pyramid)
• You CAN use this optionally for all the non-right angled triangle facings, it just removes some strength for hanging models off them while upside down, etc. depends if the magnet saving is worth it for you.

3x2mm magnets:
• ONLY for the centre magnet of textured facings.
• This is to keep the facings cheap, and all the magnet cost in the core pieces, which makes making different face textures for the mountains really cheap!

**PAINTING MOUNTAIN/CAVE STONE*

Over grey foam I start with a coat of 2:1 neutral grey and tan, mixed with 1 part matte mod podge. This may look more tan that you might expect, in my experience it tends to dry more grey when painted over grey or black.
If your foam isn't grey you can start with black mixed with mod podge, and then do the tan-grey layer over it. This is what I do over styrodur pieces.

layer up with drybrushing, firstly with a heavy drybrush of a 1:2 mix of neutral grey and tan, which gives an earthier, more natural look to the stone but keeps the cold grey in the recesses.
Again, this may look more tan that you might expect, but also bear in mind the wash will settle down the colour quite a lot.

final drybrush of white over both. I drybrushed in all directions for a more even spread.
I found this was best to do over sharp edges and sticking out areas of stone only, rather than across the whole piece. This draws the eye to interesting areas of the piece while also adding variety across the pieces and making them look less monotone.

You want to be careful when drybrushing that your paint doesn’t dry completely out. This may sound counterintuitive, but when drybrushing, you want barely any paint on the brush, but you do still want the paint to be wet (from the paint, not added water!). Once it dries you want to get the bulk of it off the brush with some quick brushes on scrap paper towels, then reapply wet paint and wipe most off.

Once these were done and completely dry, as in I let them dry for 12 hours at least to avoid the wash rehydrating the paint, I gave everything a coat of homemade black wash. I do this over a few layers of newspaper, which is good at soaking up excess wash rather than letting it pool and dry, staining the bottom of the pieces, as long as you check it periodically as it dries. I move it slightly, or to fresh newspaper if needed and mop up wash collecting at the bottom of the tiles with some paper towels, again so it doesn’t pool and leave marks at the bottom.

If you've made this kind of wash before it's basically the same as the black brown wash I usually use except it's pure black ink, and no brown. The recipe is listed below.

I then added some dirt grout mix in areas where mud might gather, cracks mostly, and seal with two layers of scenic sealant (as shown in the video)

Finally I add two layers of matt varnish to dull the mod podge down and seal it, as said in the video.

*SCENIC SEALANT RECIPE:*

This stuff is really easy to mix, I use the following formula:

1 part mod podge
4 or more parts water - you can make this as thick or thin as you like, and just use more layers to make it harder.
A drop of dish soap (fairy liquid type stuff) or flow improver - this helps it…well…flow :)

The more mod podge, the darker and more 'wet' the dirt will look when dry. But you can use multiple thinner layers and build up strength that way too.

*PURE BLACK WASH RECIPE:*

Only make as much as you need, the mixture will settle overnight. A good shake will fix it, but probably not when it gets thicker…

Full bottle (200ml), 40 drops black. 60/40 water-matt medium. Then add a few drops of flow improver per bottle.

For 100ml mixes (half a bottle) just halve the ink

Please note this is the pure black wash for painting mountainblocks, caves and balsa wood (as grey, weathered wood). The black brown wash for other builds like stone walls etc is slightly different and listed in those videos!

Updated recipe september 2021

*DIRT GROUT MIX RECIPE:*
Brown and black unsanded tile grout
Dirt cooked in the oven and filtered through a sieve. You want to grind this dirt up with some kind of improv mortar and pestle into smaller grains - it doesn’t need to be dust like the grout but should be otherwise pretty small. I strain it through a sieve to get rid of anything too big.

The ratio you want here is going to depend on the colour of your local grout
I just mixed in a bit of black at a time until the colour darkened down to match the original dirt.
I ended up with about a 4:2:1 ratio of dirt:brown grout:black grout

I now add 1/2 a ratio (shot glass) of natural earth yellow pigment to make the reddish tint go away, without turning it grey by adding more black grout or grout mix. I added this to 12 dirt, 8 brown, 4 black grout. So its more like adding 1/8 of a glass to the minimum ratio shown above (4:2:1 then 1/8th of pigment)