New Halloween moulds released include Vampires, Skeletons, Werewolves and the Frankenstein Monster

New Halloween Monster Moulds

Halloween is fast approaching and while that may be a scary thought you still have time to cast and paint up some frighteningly evil decorations. Prince August has created a classic monster head series that include the Vampire/Pirate Skeleton mould and the Werewolf/Frankenstein Monster mould.

These moulds can be cast hundreds of times and are easy to make and paint. Use your imagination to really bring to life (without a lightening storm) your creations.

These are flat moulds that all include a base to stand them on. No assembly after casting is required. The backs of the heads include details too.

However you may want to hurry. These are seasonal products and will only be available from September through to November.

Start casting a monster today!

New Fairy moulds | Castable 60mm flat fairy moulds in three varieties.

New Fairy moulds

Prince August has released in September 2018 three new fairy moulds to cater to hobby casting enthusiasts that prefer non military themed moulds. These are 60mm approximately in scale and are flat figures. Unlike the previous fairy mould, these are not fridge magnets and they have a small base on which they can stand. There is no assembly required after casting. There is detail on both sides of the figures and that detail is not identical.
The names of the three fairies are (PA1928) Daisy, (PA1929) Rose and (PA1930) Lily.

Daisy Fairy Mould

Rose Fairy Mould

Lily Fairy Mould

Fantastic Bundle Deal for Easter 2018

Easter Bundle Deal

Prince August has released two more Easter Decoration moulds in March 2018. These extend the range that already has four Easter moulds, bringing the new total to six. These are extremely easy to cast with and there is a video available here to demonstrate that clearly.

To make it easier for new collectors of these moulds or new customers to hobby casting itself, Prince August has created a fantastic bundle deal that will remain available until the start of April 2018.
This bundle contains the following:

• All six Easter Decoration moulds.
• 10 Ingots of Model Metal (1.25 kg of metal)
• Solder Melting Pot (UK or EU plug variant). This can be removed from bundle if desired.
• Kit 2000 Casting Accessories pack.
• Super Snipper tool for removing cleanly any ingates from castings.
• A metal file for cleaning up any rough edges after removing ingates.
• A set of three different sized quality paint brushes.
• A set of paint pots with 2 small brushes.
• Casting instructions.

The price for all this is just 80.49 Euro exclusive of tax or 99 Euro inclusive of Irish tax.
If you remove the solder pot from the bundle the price drops by 24 Euro including tax.

To give you an idea just how great a deal this is, the six moulds ALONE would cost 93 Euro with tax. So for a mere 6 Euro more you get all the rest.

Find out more about the Easter Decorations here. 

Spanish Armada 1588 Chess moulds | November 2017 Release.

Prince August has released in November 2017 chess moulds that allow you to cast the English and Spanish sides for the Spanish Armada 1588. 

The Spanish Armada was sent up the English channel by their King, Philip II, to bring his army from Flanders over to England to depose the current Queen, Elizabeth I.

The English had different ideas and knew that they had to prevent the landing of a Spanish army on English soil. While at sea they had the advantage and harrassed the Spanish Fleet all the way up the Channel and with the help of their Dutch allies drove the Spanish into retreat, via sailing around England via Scotland and returning to Spain eventually. The storms were so fierce that many of the armada's ships were wreaked off the coast of Scotland and Ireland, resulting ultimately in the loss of about 45 ships out of the initial 130 that had left Spain.

Buy both sides of the Spanish Armada chess moulds here.

These moulds will allow you to cast 54mm scale metal chess pieces. Casting metal and equipment is sold separately. 

It is also an ideal opportunity to try out our new Solder Melting Pot, and also cast with Pewter metal rather than our Model Metal. Normally casting in Pewter is harder due to the technical issues in getting that metal hot enough on a normal stove or hotplate. Our Solder pot can heat the metal easily however so with a slight turn of the knob you can scoop out 5 Star pewter just as easily as Model Metal. Currently we even offer half price 10 ingot deal. Grab 8 more bars and you have enough for a chess set.

NEW RELEASE: Seven Years War Artillery moulds in August 2017

Prince August Seven Years War Artillery moulds

Prince August has released three new products this August. Previously they released infantry moulds for nations Prussia, Russian, France and Austria (including Hungarian forces) and now for the first time they have supplemented those moulds with artillery moulds. These new moulds include a cannon (2 moulds) and four crewmen (two per mould). The cannon has four interchangeable barrels and the crewmen have interchangeable heads so they can represent different nations.

PA3117 Seven Years War Artillery Cannon / Howitzer label.

To those not familiar with the series, the Seven Years War range covers one of the first truly worldwide wars in human history.
The Seven Years' war took place in the mid-eighteenth century and involved most of the great European powers of the day. Prussia, allied with Britain faced a coalition of many other states, notably Austria and France but also Sweden, Saxony and later Spain. Two separate conflicts really stood at the root of the war.

Firstly the struggle between an emergent Prussia and Austria over the Holy Roman empire and other disputes and secondly a developing colonial rivalry between Britain and France.

The main focus of the war was Europe but it also spread to the New World and India. Russia also participated in the Seven Years War at first on the side of Austria but later switching to an alliance with Prussia.

Seven Years War Artillery Crewmen mould PA3118 - Officer and Crewman carrying round.

The moulds are vulcanised rubber and can be reused hundreds of times. They are suitable for low temperature metal casting, like pewter or one of the Prince August alloys like Model Metal.
The scale is 40mm and the figures are semi-flat (excluding the cannon which is fully round). Some assembly of cast pieces is required so superglue or solder is required.

Seven Years War Artillery mould - Aligner and Crewman with ram-rod.

There is a bundle offer for all three moulds which saves you 10%. Prince August also offered for a limited time a special half price metal deal which expires at noon on Friday August 4th 2017 GMT+1.

'The Prince and I' article by Scott Dummitt.

           Prince August Moulds and myself go back a long ways. I was 18 years old when I got my first set so we’re talking 43 years ago. I even remember my first mould; it was an 18^th Century Musketeer figure standing shooting. Believe it or not I still have it in my box of moulds. I thought I would approach this subject as the days of buying a couple of dozen figures to create a display of soldiers have gotten rather expensive for most of us. It has also gotten difficult to find the right bands that we want for our display, and yet with a set of moulds we can still create small armies at a rather respectable cost.

            With the use of a hot plate, a starter set and my first mould I was able to create a firing line of British soldiers representing a Royal regiment from the French & Indian wars. Of course the same mould could be used for producing a French regiment as well. The early sets of moulds produced by Prince August Limited were made in Ireland, and then shipped to Sweden for packaging, so many of us believed that they were a Swedish company. In fact the owner of the company, Lars Edman, is Swedish. The factory is now found in Kilnamartyra, Macroom, Co.Cork, Ireland and both production and packaging are done in the same place.

            Most of Prince August Limited’s early moulds were 40mm or 25mm figures, and while you could do a lot of moulding using lead weights, it didn’t fulfill that need many of us wanted, 54mm. Then something wonderful happened. The company started producing 54mm moulds of Prussian Seven Years war figures. While still not an era I was deeply interested in, it was a start. Time at University, and an early 1^st marriage, took me away from the hobby for a while. I still dabbled in trying to paint connoisseur style using Imrie/Risley miniatures and Airfix sets, but as far as the toy soldier style went, that was out. Then something magical happened in the 1980s when I was in the Navy. William Britain Limited came out with a ceremonial set of the Cameron Highlanders and I was hooked once again. I also found John Tunstill’s Soldiers Soldiers in the UK while on leave and was able to not only purchase finished products, but could purchase the castings as well. This all lead back to me collecting Toy Soldiers again and getting involved with a group in Victoria, BC.  This round about story leads me back to Prince August Moulds.

            While stationed at Esquimalt, I met a former Canadian Guardsman/PPCLI Officer named Steven Brodsky. Steve was a wonderful gentleman and taught at Royal Roads Military College. At one of our meetings Steve brought in the Colours and Escort of the Royal Roads Cadets. He had made the set from a recently released 54mm set of moulds produced by Prince August Limited. I desperately wanted to get my hands on this set of moulds as I could imagine doing countless regiments of Canadian & British units. It would be another 5 or 6 years before I could find them. Remember there really was no internet of home computers in the late 80’s.

            Eventually I was transferred to Ottawa after a trade transfer and things didn’t start off to well while I was there. I was frustrated with the military and my second marriage fell apart. It was a pretty low time in my life and then I came across a small store in Norwood, Ontario that sold militaria, soldiers, and prints. The gentleman who owned the store had some Prince August Limited 54mm moulds that he wanted to sell off (they were used) of the Dragoons and Household Cavalry. I purchased these from him and using tire balancing weights; I started moulding a Blues & Royal mounted band. I used any band instrument arms that I had managed to scrounge or collect over the years and constructed the tenor drums from cigar sleeve holders and wine bottle lead cork wrappings. A few months later I showed the set to the store owner and he suggested I start making the figures for purchase. By this time I had also found the address for Prince August and had received a catalogue from them in the mail. I may not have had a lot of extra cash at that time, but using the Prince August moulds and a little ingenuity, I was able to start getting back in the hobby. It also started me off with my own business.

            In 1996 I created figures for the Canadian War Museum and sold them on consignment in their small souvenir shop in the old location. This also lead to my first contract for figures when I was approached by Marty Lane of the Governor General Foot Guards kit shop to create 100 sets of a Guardsman and Sentry Box for their 125th Anniversary. While I produced the Guardsmen from the Prince August “Toy Soldiers on Parade” moulds, I purchased 100 W. Britain sentry boxes from OMSS member Richard Malott. Dick told me later that it was the largest single sentry box order that Britains had ever had. If you look at the official GGFG web page today, you can see that they still have some of my sets in stock.

            Today I only use the basic body to start creating figures for my business and all figures are cast using lead free pewter. Using spare heads, and Milliput you can make a lot of different figures with the basic moulds. All of the PRIDE OF THE NATION figures that I produce have been built off of the headless, armless figure you can cast using Prince August. The great things about these sets are you really are only limited by your imagination and your abilities. Casting figures and painting them gives you the ability once again to create large groupings for a fraction of the price that finished products cost. Some of my personal creations are the Corps of Drums Canadian Guards, REME Staff Band, the RCN Stadacona Band, the Corps of Drums Fort Henry Guard, the mounted band of the Blues & Royals, “Brock’s Last Charge” and countless other figures. The Corps of Drums Canadian Guards set has extremely strong feelings for me. I had started the figures around 2006, but had put them aside. Then in late 2007 I decided to finish them off and put them in the 2008 OMSS competition. I had found a wooden side drum rim to use on the display base and my Dad took the time to strip it and sand it for me. This was our last project together as my Dad passed away early in 2008. I finished the project for the show that year and if you look at our OMSS pamphlet you can see that the unit is the center photo.

            Yes, the Prince and I have had a long relationship together. I expect it will continue until my hands aren’t steady enough to hold the moulding ladle or a paint brush.

Examples of Scott's painted work.

Prince August has just started a large sale on many products today (Jan 17th), including reducing some moulds to just 1 Euro (exc. tax). However stock is very limited so first come first served. We have put the stock numbers up on the sale too, so you can see what is available per sale item.

Also Prince August has reintroduced our Lucky Dip Mould bags. Each bag contains five random moulds. There are no documentation with these moulds but they are all unused. There are less than 20 bags for sale and as I write this that number has already dropped almost in half.
This sale will end at noon on Jan 24th 2017, unless we sell out before the weekend, which is possible.

Bank of Ireland Enterprise Exhibition in Macroom Cork with Dr Eva Orsmond & Lars Edman

With a history of growing up in Scandinavia and sharing the nordic tradition of casting in white metal, Lars Edman helps Dr Eva Orsmond cast little witches from Prince August moulds (Halloween Decorations) at the recent Bank of Ireland Enterprise Exhibition in Macroom, County Cork.

There are also other Halloween decorations available too, including a Spooky Ghost, Scary Black Cat and a Jack O' Lantern Pumpkin. Each mould can be reused hundreds of times and the figures have little loops to hang them from ribbons or chains if desired.

The Toy Soldier Factory is now the oldest factory in the area, allowing customers to cast their own Halloween figures when they visit (via seasonal workshops).

Time to give fairies the home they deserve. Introducing our Fairies & Fairy Door craft kit

Prince August has a wonderful new craft kit that is perfect for a gift to children 6 or over. Cast, with your Mum or Dad, little fairies and then give them a home in your home. Inspire a child's compassion and imagination as well as their artistic creativity this season. This kit contains a surprising large amount of contents, including casting equipment, 11 acrylic paint tubs, a primer tub, 2 different paint brushes, a Fairy mould that casts two different fairies, a wooden engraved detail fairy door and a pack of self adhesive decorations. 

Adult supervision is required for casting with small children but that is part of the fun, getting some quality time with your kids. The metal used is pewter so it is safe to handle.

There are options to add more metal and fairy door packs too, to extend the fun to friends as well.

New Release | Seven Years War French Infantry Moulds in December 2016.

Prince August has previously released Prussian, Austrian, Hungarian Regiments in the Austrian army and finally Russian army moulds. Overdue but finally released, the French army is a welcome addition to this expanding 40mm scale range that focuses on the mid-eighteenth century international war that swept the known world.
These French moulds can cast fusiliers and grenadiers with and without turnbacks on their coats, as well as drummers, NCOs, standard bearers and officers.
As expected these moulds have interchangeable parts so there is more flexibility than first meets the eye.
As a bonus Prince August is offering all four moulds in a bundle with 10% discount on R.R.P.

The previous release (Russians) are also now available as an 100+ Army Pack deal, which includes 20 bars of metal so you can cast up to 100 soldiers for as little as 1.21 Euro (ex. tax) per soldier.
Pretty amazing value.

New Super Metal Intro | Next Gen Tech to reinvigorate Hobby Casting in the 21st Century

Casting metal is always a tricky business, you need weight to get a gravity cast to work yet people don't like lead in their metal alloys for safety reasons. Pewter is too light by itself to easily cast, especially in some flatter moulds, so some people avoid it, despite the fact that it is lead free.

So after much research Prince August has found a perfect solution, a metal that flows wonderfully into the mould, produces strong shiny results easily, fills all the details effortlessly and is safe to handle, and yet is still very affordable.

We call it SUPER metal, because that is the only word that fits on the metal bar that describes how good it is.
So for a limited time you can try it out yourself. Get 10 ingots of this revolutionary alloy for just 22 Euro (excluding V.A.T.) and tell us how you feel about it.

Update: This was 2016's April Fool's prank.

New Christmas Decoration moulds - Female Carol Singer, Snowman and Child Angel

 

Prince August has already a wonderful collection of Christmas decoration moulds but these three new ones further enhance the choice you have when it comes to decorate your Christmas tree. These have different details on both sides. You can cast from each mould hundreds of times using our Model Metal.

 

The new Xmas decorations shown here are the Female Carol Singer, Child Angel with Star and Snowman with Top Hat. Each mould has one decoration. These are flat figures when cast. On average you should be able to cast about three figures per 125 gram ingot, provided the ingates are remelted each time.

RTE Nationwide coverage of the Toy Soldier Factory and Battle of Waterloo Exhibit 14th October 2015

At the start of August 2015 RTE showed interest in including our Toy Soldier Factory in one of their upcoming Nationwide programs. Several staff were interviewed and so was André Rudolph, the creator of the huge Battle of Waterloo diorama currently on exhibit in our visitor center.

Finally on October 14th 2015, the program aired and we were shown in the second half of that episode. We are very pleased with the segment and are grateful to those involved with RTE for having shared our business with the rest of their audience.

With that in mind Prince August has cut the prices of their bargain starter kits by 50% until noon on October 21st 2015 UTC+1.

New Russian Army Moulds from the Seven Years War range on Prince August in July 2015

Prince August previously released the Hungarian regiments from the Austrian Army in late 2014, and due to a large amount of renovation of their factory, had a hiatus on new releases. But now that the work has largely finished they are back making new and exciting soldier moulds once again.
This time they are releasing four new moulds from the Russian Army, with Summer and Winter Uniforms. As with the previous releases they all have interchangeable heads so even with four moulds, there is a wide scope for creativity. These new moulds include Grenadiers and Musketeers and have the usual Standard Bearers, Drummers, NCO's and Officers included.

For those not familiar with the series, these are 40mm scale figures that customers can cast hundreds of times at home using these black rubber moulds. Full assembly and painting guides are included and there is historical data detailing the type of army setup was popular for each faction. You can download most of these as pdfs from the website product pages.

The Seven Years' War was a mid 18th Century worldwide conflict, perhaps the most internationally fought war to date in human history. So far Prince August has included the Prussians, Austrians, Hungarian regiments in the Austrian army and, as of July 2015, the Russians.

Future expansions will include cavalry and artillery.

30% off chess set moulds until April 3rd

 

Prince August has slashed its prices on all its chess moulds, excluding the newest release, the Medieval chess, and the spare pawn moulds until noon on Friday April 3rd 2015 (BST).

There is nothing quite as satisfying as playing a game of chess that you made yourself. It adds extra zing to the whole experience. Prince August has a wide array of themes to choose from as well so you will never be bored by being forced to cast the same thing over and over. 

One of the most popular chess sets are the Staunton chess set, which has no historical theme, but is favoured by chess players who simply want a classic looking set, without the distractions of themes. It is also the cheapest chess set to make as it only requires one side instead of two and needs a LOT less metal to cast due to the thinner pieces.

The 2nd most popular set is our Crusades chess set, which includes Richard the Lionheart vs Saladin. These are knights and castle pieces that fit the chess theme seamlessly. The popularity of this set inspired us to make another medieval themed set. It was actually an accident that the new Medieval set, based on the Battle of Agincourt, would be released on the 600th anniversary of that historical event. It must be fate.

Casting a chess set may seem daunting but it actually is incredibly easy. Once you have warmed up your moulds you can cast a chess piece in 5 minutes. It will not be long before you have the entire set cast and primed awaiting the decision on how to paint them. Many sets have painting guides but, as with many open ended creative hobbies, you can do a bit of historical research yourself and paint the figures to your hearts content.

Here is a sample of what one customer, John Lubinski, did when he let his creative juices flow. This chess set is the Field of Cloth of Gold, Henry VIII and Francis I.

 

New Prince August Medieval Chess Moulds to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt.

Prince August in March 2015 has released their latest 54mm scale metal chess set as moulds. This means you can cast and paint them however you want. Typically Prince August offers some painting guides to hobby casters that are fond of quick and simple tips on painting this historical chess set.

The battle of Agincourt took place in 1415 and the two kings involved were Henry V and Charles VI. The English army consisted of a lot of archers with their longbows and even though they were outnumbered on the day, due to many varied factors, including wet weather and poor French tactics, the English gained a complete victory. It resulted in many French knights either dying or being captured for ransom.

This chess set can represent any battle between the French and English during the Hundred Years' War period of conflict during those centuries.

Each side has three moulds and each mould has two figures per mould. These moulds are vulcanised rubber so will allow many hundreds of castings before wear and tear become a factor in the quality of the castings, if you use low melting point metal. Prince August promotes their Model Metal as the very best metal for any castings, with its fine details and low melting point, it is guaranteed to give a fantastic finish.

Another bonus for this set is that there is no assembly required at all. The only thing to glue together is the soft felt bases underneath the chess pieces to help protect the chess boards from scratches during use.

So if you enjoy highly detailed metal pieces, with well researched historical themes, then this new set is up your alley. To cast a full 32 pieces you should budget for about 16 bars of metal (a little less than 2kg).

UPDATE: Check out the French side of the upcoming Medieval Chess Set.

These are the french pieces that will be part of the Battle of Agincourt themed Medieval Chess Set.
These can be cast from moulds and will be available to buy in February 2015 from Prince August.
The battle took place in 1415, so this year is the 600th anniversary of that important conflict.
You can see the preview of the English side here on this blog. Post your comments below.

Upcoming release of a new Medieval Chess Set in February 2015.

This year is the 600th anniversary of the famous Battle of Agincourt (1415). This epic battle was between France and England and showcased a huge number of longbowmen on the English side which played an important part in their resulting victory.
This chess set is in 54mm scale and will be available as moulds in February. More information will be available next week. This chess set was designed by Chris Tubb.
These are previews of the English side of this new Medieval Chess set.

New Hungarian moulds support Austria in the Seven Years War

On November 14th 2014 Prince August has extended the current range of their Seven Years War moulds. These three Hungarian moulds can cast fusilier and grenadier infantry, NCO, Drummer, Standard Bearer and Officer.

As with the last two releases, these include interchangeable heads so you can be more flexible with a smaller amount of moulds than ever before.
These Hungarians fought in the Austrian army but have their own colour scheme and uniform. There are assembly instructions and a painting guide included with the moulds, but also made available as pdfs on the product pages if needed. There is also a pdf of flags available for printing.
Prices are the same as last time at 12.15 Euro (Ex. V.A.T) per mould.

It is important to remember that each mould can cast hundreds of times and each mould has two figures in it so you can, with care, get about 1000 cast soldiers from a single mould. All you need to do is keep melting metal.

Here is some historical information from Prince August about the Hungarians in the Austrian army:

The Holy Roman (Austrian) emperor was also the king of Hungary and the Austrian army comprised 10 Hungarian regiments as well as the 39 Imperial or German regiments. The Hungarian  regiments incorporated some elements of their national dress in their uniforms, notably their distinctive trousers.

Each regiment comprised 16 fusilier and 2 Grenadier units. The grenadier companies would, in the field, be detached from their parent regiment and merged with grenadier companies from other regiments to form a grenadier corps.

All 10 Hungarian regiments wore  a white coat (the traditional colour of the Holy Roman empire) and the distinctive Hungarian trousers. The hair of the rank and file was tied into side-plaits and only the officers had the side curls in the style of the German infantry. Standards were carried by officers.