Les Bonnes Choses

As you may have guessed, games are a passion of mine. What you might not know is how this love of games was fostered from a young age by my grandfather. When I was quite young, my grandfather taught me how to play chess. Naturally, I had little chance against him because of his years playing against really good Russian, Polish and Ukranian players during the war when he worked with the Polish resistance. Below is one of the few photos we have from that time in his life.


You would think that this would have been a great opportunity to become a fantastic chess player. Alas, it became apparent that I was too easily frustrated, or at the very least a sore loser. But my grandfather was a kind soul, and was always open to playing just about any game I would suggest after he checkmated me in six moves. We played just about everything. GO! The Game of Life, Scrabble, Operation, Dungeons and Dragons. Back in the early 80's, I had even brought a Star Wars game to a family picnic. Unfortunately, it only came with adult sized Storm Trooper costumes, so I was unable to play.


Over the years, I think my grandpa and I must have played just about every game you could possibly find at a flea market. Sometimes I'd win; sometimes grandpa would win; but we'd always have fun. Except the Tomb of Horrors. That module was brutal. I never forgave grandpa for killing off my paladin.


My grandpa lived a long and happy life, but sadly passed away during my college years. One thing I regret is that the Settlers of Catan game didn't come out until some years after he died. He would have absolutely loved that game. Not long ago, I fashioned my own Settlers of Catan set (chronicled in my Prologue, Part 1, Part 2 ,Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5). Having finished the project, I feel I have become quite expert at mold-making and casting, and recently decided I wanted to try something a little more advanced.

Because the resin initially mixes as a thin liquid, it is possible to add dry materials to the plastic. Sometimes people do this to add mass, or colour to the plastic. For example, I had considered casting replacement game pieces with iron filings mixed in to the resin so they would work with the magnetic tiles. On one rainy Sunday afternoon, however, I had a flash of inspiration: I was going to play games with my grandpa again.

The urn containing my grandpa's ashes sits over the mantle at my aunt Vera's house. As it happens, there was recently a baby shower there. Also as it happens, the 1 liter plastic bag they provide at airport security will easily fit a sufficiently-sized pill container with a screw-on lid. I carefully spooned out a modest amount of ash into the pill bottle, taking care not to disrespect grandpa by spilling his ashes on the floor.


Getting the ashes over the border turned out to be easier than I thought because ashes don't count as a liquid, and so the airport security people didn't even notice the pill container. The weekend after the baby shower, I set about casting my new custom grandpa game pieces.


The materials were pretty straight forward. I had my syringes for measuring out the resin components, and I set aside a bowl containing the ashes. Not pictured is the measuring spoon. I calculated how much resin would be required for a complete set of game pieces, and then roughly estimated the volume of ash that would be required in each batch of resin so that grandpa would be roughly equally distributed throughout the entire set.


After mixing up a test batch, I cast my first pieces. I didn't get the ash properly mixed in the resin on my first attempt. After casting a few pieces, I got the hang of it, and successfully mixed grandpa into four complete sets of plastic game pieces.


I have painted up one complete set, and plan to do two of the other three sets this weekend. I think I will leave one of the sets the natural colour of the resin because as you might be able to see from the pictures, the ash mixed in with the resin gives the pieces an interesting mottled appearance that I think actually looks rather nice. Plus, it's an interesting conversation piece.