Final Stone A-Walls
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 06:50:05 PM

Hi Backers!

We finished the final tweaks to the mold over the weekend, and started cutting the new updated texture of the Stone A-Walls. They ended up looking fantastic, with more detail in each stone then the original model for the KS. We wanted to make the the stones looked even more organic and warn than our first designs, we very pleased with the finished look. 

We are currently shooting the walls on the injection molding machine!

We started with a mixed cavity load of half walls and half floors while we are finishing cutting the two other cavities of walls. We should be done with those two cavities in the next couple of days and loading them into the mold, then we will be shooting all walls instead of a mixed load. 

While the inside walls are shooting, we will be cutting the outside walls so they are ready to swap over immediately in the mold. Then we will be cutting the caps while the outside walls are shooting. Now that we got all of the tolerances for the locking of the walls all dialed in, cutting molds is much faster as those tolerances and wall thicknesses apply to all wall types.  

Here is a shot of the walls directly off of the injection molding machine

Shot of black primer

Quick dry brush of some colors

Once we have the final caps shot, we will post some photos of the pieces together. 

Stay Safe Everyone!

Thanks 

Jamison & The AOD Team

Mini Update on Wall design progress
almost 4 years ago – Thu, Jun 04, 2020 at 12:27:01 AM

Hi Everyone, 

Here is a quick mini update showing the progress on the walls, since the last update. We went through about 6 different variations of the locking system between the two wall halves and cap, until we felt it was just right.  You can throw these things across the room, on the concrete floor in our warehouse,  and they will not fall apart. At the same time you can still take them apart with your hands, with just a bit of force. The new additional options are going to give everyone so many more ways to build with Rampage.  

We are cutting the final template cap and possibly shooting it tonight, then focusing on tool path for texture on the wall, cutting it, and off to shooting them as planned. We will keep you posted with photos of the wall when we shoot them with texture. 

Template A-Wall without the cap on, clipped to a Rough Stone E-Floor.

The Interior of the locking system between the two halves of an A-Wall. The finished version will have the correct length ejector pins, so those little circles will not protrude on the inside of the wall, as seen in the photo. 

Stay Safe

Thanks 

Jamison & The AOD Team 

Lots to talk about in this update!!
almost 4 years ago – Fri, May 22, 2020 at 02:17:53 AM

Hi Everyone, 

Still hope you all are staying safe out there, and getting plenty of time to game!

Wood Doors

On the last update we showed that we made our first attempt at a textured mold. Here are a few shots of the actual finished mold we made, a 2 cavity mold of the Wood Doors, we finished shooting 13k of them last week. 

Current Mold Status

We have been going at it full time here with Fusion & the CNC. It has been a very rewarding feeling to actually, design, cut, and shoot the door all our selves. It was a daunting moment at AOD when we started to see the writing on the walls, that we were not going to get the molds made anytime soon by Protoquick or Bend Molding once the Pandemic started. Now that the door is out of the way, we defiantly feel like moving through the rest of the molds will be fairly fast. We are currently cutting a couple different variations of the wall and making test shots to confirm the locking system feels just right. We should have photos of that next week and be set to finish cutting the walls, then right to shooting them. 

Here is a quick screen shot of the A & B side of the foundation mold for the internals of the locking system for the A-Walls. Once we are satisfied with tolerances in the locking system we will then add Stone texture to the A side of this mold. 

Shipping Date of Wave 1 

At this point we just need to finish off the the molds for the Rough Stone Walls (A-Wall, BA-Wall, Arch) & the Stone Columns, shoot them, and then we are ready to start shipping. Our estimate is that we are finished up cutting the Rough Stone Walls, around the first week of June, then we will be shooting those parts 24/7 until they are finished. In the mean time we will be cutting the Stone Column molds, so that once the walls are finished shooting (which should be a little past mid June), then we will start shooting the Columns. The Columns should take about 10 days to finish. So that puts us right around the end of June, we will be immediately painting and packing them to go with the rest of whats finished. So our expectation is that we are finished packing it all around the 2nd week of July and its leaving our warehouse. 

Updating Shipping Address

Everyone should already have the ability to log into Backerkit and update their addresses. Please correct us if that is not correct, but we reached out to Backerkit and they stated that even with your orders locked, you still have the ability to update shipping address. On June 30th, we will be sending out an update as well as an email from Backerkit, stating that you have 48 hours to update your shipping address before the address is locked. From that point on we will be printing shipping labels with that address, and it will be very difficult to change at that point. 

If you do not know your email address or password with Backerkit,  please reach out to them to get that info, if they can not help you please message us through Kickstarter and we will try and get you all taken care of. Please do not send us your new address, as we need you to long into Backerkit to update and confirm it is correct. 

What is shipping in Wave 1

We are sending out what is finished regardless of what pledge or add on they are associated with on the KS.  Both Painted and Unpainted will be shipped. The following pieces will be shipped in Wave 1, the remaining pieces will be shipped in Wave 2. 

Walls: A-Stone Wall,  BA-Stone Wall,  A, Stone Arch

Floors: E-Stone Floor, E-Castle Floor, E-Crypt Floor, E-Spike Floor, E-Pressure Plate Floor, AS-Stone Floor

Columns: Stone Column (New Adjustable Column that makes all three L,I,O configurations)

Door inserts: Portcullis & Wood Door (Possibly the Dwarven Door if we get the time)

Misc Pieces: OpenLOCK Clips, Bone Piles, Crates, Sarcophagus, Brazier Insert, Flame Insert, Hatch Insert, Skull Insert, Sarcophagus Lid, Barrels, & Dwarven Statues.

There are still a good amount of pieces that we will be finishing for Wave 2, but from a quantity stand point, Wave 1 covers about 75% of the total amount of pieces sold on the KS, as Walls and Floors are the majority the of orders. 

We do not have a set date for Wave 2, but we do not anticipate it taking more then a few months at most. The amount of time shooting those parts is much shorter then the main walls and floors, so it really comes down to mold making time. Once we have an exact date for that we will let you know. 

AOD Boxes

Last week our order of AOD boxes finally arrived, that was about 3 months late, due to the Pandemic. The timing worked out as we were obviously not ready to pack them yet. 

We will have another update next week with the wall mold progress.

Everyone Stay Healthy!

Thanks 

Jamison & The AOD Team 

We cut our first textured detailed mold insert in house!
about 4 years ago – Mon, Apr 13, 2020 at 03:02:35 AM

Hi Everyone, 

I hope you are staying safe and healthy!  This has been such a tough time for so many all around the world, its hard to believe this is all happening. Hang in there and lay low, hopefully this shall all be past us in the near future. 

We have cut our first textured mold insert, all in house!

We are happy to say that this long painful journey of waiting for molds, then waiting for injection mold machine time to become available with 3rd party companies, has pushed us to move towards almost 100% in house manufacturing sooner then ever expected. We had always hoped to make it all in house a few Kickstarters later, but we never expected we would be doing this already. Yes it doesn't excuse the fact that the KS is extremely late to fulfill, but it does mean we are just about at the point now, where we can get stuff done fully at the pace we want to work at, all in house and local!

We are excited about our progress as miniature injection mold tooling in the U.S. is a "Lost Dark Art" as Matt Barker from Printable Scenery likes to say. He is right lol, there is very little information about how to learn this trade here, as it has all been farmed out to China for so many decades. So we have been working night and day reading up on what we can find, asking questions, and doing tests to get ready to start making molds in house. 

Here is a video and a couple photos of the progress, it should only get easier and faster from here!

Zac  going over the final tool paths in Fusion before uploading the file to our CNC and cutting the door. 

Here is the end of many hours of cutting. Only took me about 4 or 5  tries to catch the end of the cycle while talking! lol 

Here are the results of our first shot at not just cutting with the CNC, but actual detailed texture cutting. Next to the insert is a clay impression, we made from the insert. Once injection molded, it will show all the detail in the wood grain that you can see on the insert, that didn't transfer over to the clay. 

Stay Safe!

Jamison & The AOD Team 

New Advanced Stair Building System
about 4 years ago – Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 01:52:24 AM

Hi Everyone, 

First off we hope everyone is staying safe during these crazy times, we have been fortunate enough to  stay healthy over here. We shut down the warehouse for a few days when the shelter in place announcement first went out. Because my other company is an audio video communications company and holds the lease on the warehouse, we were able to reopen a couple days later as a necessary business. This has allowed us to be in the warehouse to work on manufacturing for AOD. If it wasn't for that we would have had to close the warehouse until further notice.

We are going to continue to move forward working as usual with the May shipment still as the plan. One thing that has changed is Protoquick has had a few employees no longer coming in due to the virus. They are also having the reverse effect that most companies are having, they are more busy then usual. Most of that is due to US companies not being able to get molds made in China with the current situation. So they are looking towards local mold shops. Ken and his team are still finishing up molds for us, but their lead times have gone up. So that means we are are putting more effort into making molds in house. We will hopefully have a video up next week of us cutting our first mold in house! With the change to Protoquick, we have decided there is no other option but to ship in waves. That is something I have been against the whole time, because I personally like getting a product that is fully complete when I back Kickstarters, but commonly they do come in waves, even from some of the larger KS brands. 

We will make sure the 1st wave includes everything needed to build and use the product right out of the box. Walls, Floors, Columns, Clips, Doors, from there we will send out the final waves with all the other stuff that is still being worked on but not ready to ship by May. 

Next Update cutting in house molds!

Advanced Stair Building System

Please watch the video for a full break down of the system, there are photos below of examples. These are all 3D printed Prototypes, so they do not show the full quality of the pieces compared to the Injection molded finished product. 

Basic Building Pieces 

Now you can make either style of step, realistic scale to mini step or 1" step so minis can stand on them. 

Stay Safe Everyone!

Thanks 

Jamison & The AOD Team