Casting Senet Game Pieces

Over the last several months we've come up with four or five different designs for the game pieces that go with our Senet boards.  We decided it made sense to pick two of our favorite designs and just start making sets of them.  These pics show our workspace as we cast some of the pieces (usually a pretty messy process when you start dealing with the dyes), and a few sets of one of the game piece pairs we decided to go with. This pair is one of the first that we designed and cast.  I think it's one of our favorites because they're so simple, and are very true to the original ancient Egyptian pieces.

New Tafl Pieces

Had to wait three days for our new tafl piece mold to cure, but it was finally ready to go last night. We went ahead and cast a set for Tablut.  These are simple black and white, I'd like to go for more of a stone like effect later.

New Game Pieces for Senet and Tjau

Started to put the new molds through their paces again today.  Tried a few colors, and for a few added some gold leaf  touches.  The blue we're going for a lapis lazuli look.  We also really like the gold leafing at the base of the dark green pieces.

Game Pieces mold finished

Our the game piece molds that we poured three days ago for our Senet boards are finished.  Didn't waste any time pouring a test set.  We'll experiment with some color combinations over the next several days.

Here's the first new set on an ebony and copper leaf Senet board.

Creating new Senet game piece molds

Here we're casting new molds for our small senet game pieces.  The original pieces were sculpted out of clay, from which we cast a single mold of each type of Senet pawn. Using the single molds, we cast five pieces of each for a complete set.  The problem with using a single mold to create game pieces is that if you want to add any kind of coloring to the piece, it's very difficult to maintain consistent coloring for the set if you cast the pieces one at a time rather than all at once.

In this pic we've taped the game pieces into disposable aluminum bread pans using glue dots.

Next, we mix the mold compound.  We're using Alumilite HM III compound.  It takes a few days to fully cure, but it's very durable and flexible

Pouring the compound over the secured pieces

Had just enough to cover both 5-piece sets.

Hnefetafl--branching out a bit

For the last several months Senet and Tjau have been our focus (or obsession, whatever).  While we'll continue to produce works inspired by these games, we've started to look at other cultures and other ancient games as well.  Ancient Indian and Germanic games have been on our list of games to pursue for quite a while.  This picture shows the two main game pieces we'll probably use for the germanic Hnefetafl strategy game.  The pieces were hand carved out of wood, and we'll use them to produce molds the same way we did for the Senet game pieces.

Casting Senet Game Pieces

Finally got around to casting the game pieces for the Senet and Tjau games.  We hand-carved and baked the original pieces out of modeling clay, then created a single mold for each piece. From these molds, we created five game pieces of each of style (2 different styles for each player, a simple cone and spool, and a more ornate set modeled after a bundle of reeds and a papyrus flower).  Below are pictures of the sets we've made so far--really at this point we're just playing with colors.  The bottom picture shows a five-piece mold for our cone-shaped game markers.

Game Piece Markers

These are some prototype game piece markers we've come up with.  Across the top are some Senet/Tjau game pieces.  In the center are two stylized throwing stick/knuckle bone pieces.  In the bottom left corner are some makers for a tic-tac-toe board we've thought of putting together (I really like the cuneiform-like x's and o's).  On the bottom right are some generic markers.