After buying some crude oil as a souvenir on an oil industry tour I decided to put it to some use and the idea of making real Scythe resources was born.
Wood
This was the easiest. I've cut a couple of thin twigs in the forest, dried them in the oven and cut them. I dried the for no particular reason, but it actually wrinkled the twigs skin a bit, and made them look more like wood bark. I think that it's better to dry before cutting, not vice versa, but I haven't tried drying after cutting actually. Dried at about 90 degrees Centigrade. Also, Dremel cuts look better than hand saw cuts, as hand saw frays the fibers a bit; Dremel cleaner cuts resemble wood logs more.
Food
I've 3d printed little sacks (see sack.STL file) and carefully glued wheat grains one by one into them with epoxy resin. Sounds tiresome, but not that many grains fit in the sack. The sacks were printed from wood filled pla, just to look like something organic.
Metal
This was the most tiresome part of the project. Mainly because I didn't find aluminum to buy and had to do with steel, which was bloody hard. I've bought 8mm by 8mm square rod, which matches the cross-section of original Scythe metal token. I've assembled a little cutting rig on the table:
Black thing for the rod, wooden block and the ruler are affixed to the table with double sided adhesive tape. Wooden block and the ruler act as guiding rails for moving dremel.
The problems encountered:
1. The steel is very hard, so it took hours to cut it.
2. It gets hot from cutting pretty quickly, so I had to dip it in cold water like thrice for every cut.
3. Steel dust is a real pain. I made a huge mistake of doing the work in the living room on the table full of other stuff. DON'T REPEAT MY MISTAKE. I feared that the table would be damaged by the glowing sparks, but in fact it got scratched by the dremel moving to and fro after the dust got under it's bearing legs.
4. Polishing took a lot of time as well as cutting. I've polished the uncut rod initially, and then polished cut surfaces.
But despite the pain, the metal is now my favourite resource. To understand why, just have a look:
Oil
Making Oil was the most complicated. First I 3d-printed a lot of barrels and lids for them from transparent pla. I've actually printed twice more than were needed as the success rate of the whole process was not very good. Then I've painted every barrel inside surface and inner lid surface with jewelry epoxy to ensure leaktightness. Epoxy was allowed several days to set. Then I poured the oil in the barrels with a syringe and closed them with the lids. For sealing I've tried epoxy, cyanoacrylate, and polyurethane glue. I didn't find which one is better, they had about the same failure rate. After glue dried up or epoxy set I've discarded barrels that were obviously leaking. The rest I've further tested for leaks with gasoline. I've placed the barrels in little jars, like 4-5 barrels per jar and poured gasoline over and left the jars for about a day. If the gasoline remained clear then the barrels were tight. The jars should be closed, as the gasoline evaporates pretty quickly.
Instead of crude oil used engine oil could be used, looks the same, though it's a bit pointless, if the goal is to make real resources.
Brilliant!:)
Not familiar with this game, but as a huge fan of board games like settlers of the catan / Dominion, really makes me want to make something along these lines.