With all of the new Grind excitement, I decided I wanted to try and make a grind ball. Now I know a ball will come with the game, but I figured in the meantime it would provide something fun to do. I knew the ball had to be metal and spikey, but besides that, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted, so I hit the internet. After a bit of searching, I found this page. This had pretty much what I wanted, ranted it was in german and I don’t speak german. Go Go Google Translate! Anyway, I made one just like the german guide showed (and subsequently didn’t take pictures of it because I forgot my camera) and took it to my LGS for some fun. Someone there mentioned how awesome they would be as mines and objectives in games too, so I set out to make 5 more of them. This time, however, I was going to do it even cheaper than my first one. To make it less expensive, substitute toothpicks for spears, leave out the snaps (they were the most expensive part of the whole project), and use cheap flat black paint instead of primer. Here is my step by step:
This is everything you need: A 3″ foam ball, some cardstock (cut into strips), White glue, toothpics, a balsa wood base, and paint (not shown)
Next you glue the strips around the ball is a completely random, haphazard fashion
After that, cut your toothpicks in half and start sticking them in
Finally, spray paint it black and dry brush it metal. This is the step you will spend the most time on (or the least time if it really doesn’t matter what it looks like). For my, I tend to build up layers and add rust and blood effects, but for now, here is the image with just a Pig Iron base
And there you go. The original way (with the spears and snaps) really wasn’t that expensive, but if you want to even shave off the last couple of bucks, this is how to do it. I have seen them used a couple of different ways now:
- Grind Balls
- Mines
- Barracades
- Objectives (that randomnly detonate on a roll of 1)
Anyway, enjoy.
War Builder 