Workshop

Welcome to the Mindworm Games workshop!

It aint much, but it’s a shitload better than where we were working six months ago…

No offense to Jesse, but the rusty machetes and creepy skulls were really starting to bum me out.

Spooky Shed 1

Benson sacrificed his garage to build out this tidy little space, but don’t worry. It isn’t attached to the house, so if he burns the damn thing down at least his children will be alive to mourn him.

We’ll give you the ten-cent tour while the structure remains intact!

Bertha

By far the main attraction in the workshop is “Bertha,” our Contenti 12” air cast machine. Bertha is a workhorse machine, built to handle large volumes.

Her compressor is noisy as fuck, so we rigged an air hose deal in the wall and put the damn thing in the shed out back, not that you give a shit about that.

Bertha comes to us from the Josh Qualtieri (ZombieSmith Studios), one of the most awesome people in all of table top gaming. Bertha was too much of a noisy bitch for him, so he let us have her at a good price. If you are a fan of the Quar or most anything ZombieSmith makes, many of your models were likely birthed from the soiled loins of Bertha here.

Clara

“Clara” is our secondary spin caster. She’s part of a Conley New Venture Casting Factory that we picked up on the cheap. For all you aspiring manufacturers, the NVCF is a great product. We picked up Clara and the gang after discovering that this setup is exactly what Josh replaced Bertha with. Josh does a bullshitload of casting, so he’s put the equipment through its paces.

The NVCF comes with a good-quality electric melter and a desktop vulcanizer, all of which run off of a standard 110v wall outlet. This stuff isn’t as robust as the Contenti gear, and pressure is applied with hand-operated nuts, so it takes a little more finesse to operate. But it’s cheap, efficient, and very low profile. In fact, the NVCF is so low profile we’ll be taking Clara up to Gen Con with us!

Waco Kid

This here’s the “Waco Kid,” our Next Wave Automation CNC Shark. Unlike most of the shit around here, we bought this sucker new. A CNC machine is not something you want to pick up secondhand. We were either getting a laser or a CNC router, and we eventually decided to go with the router.

At the end of the day, the Waco Kid gives us a so many more options than a laser. The Kid is also cheaper to operate than a laser, more robust, and frankly way fucking cooler.

We are, as of yet, pretty much total noobs with the Waco Kid, but we’re quick studies here at Mindworm Games. We’ll take you along on our adventures with the Kid, and we’ll make all the dangerous mistakes so you don’t have to!

Butch

This is “Butch,” our Lee Casting Supply 4 post hydraulic vulcanizer. Butch is an old warhorse; used, refurbished, used again, and finally purchased by us. He works fine, although we’ve been working our asses off to de-jank the sumbitch. His cutoff timer still doesn’t work for shit, so we ABSOLUTELY can’t forget to unplug the damn thing! But that makes it sorta exciting. As exciting as a glorified hot plate attached to a hydraulic jack can be, anyway.

Cassidy

“Cassidy” here is our lil’ NVCF vulcanizer. Frankly, I’m amazed the damn thing works, but work it does! You have to crank those nuts like a motherfucker to get the pressure right, but this guy will pop out molds just as well as Butch does, and he even has a working cutoff timer!

We like to use Cassidy when we’re cooking a mold overnight. Butch is a little too exciting for that!

Tom, Dick, & Harry

Say hello to “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” These three knuckleheads are our electric melt pots. Some folks swear by a gas-operated melter, but fuck that noise. Who wants to run a damn gas line?

Two of these guys are cheap little Lee Casting melt pots, which are all Josh uses because he has weird habits. The trick here is having separate pots for re-melting excess metal.