Making a prop for escape room

Quite often we get asked questions about various props and puzzles in our rooms – “How did this open?” or “Where did you get this item?” or “Did you make this?”. And today we wanted to share a process (actually, part of the process) of creating a prop for an escape room. We are currently working on our third room, which will be based on Ancient Egypt. As you can imagine getting real Egyptian items of the right era is not that easy, and we are forced to make props ourselves. The item we are making here is a stone plaque with symbols on it.

First step is to find or make a mold, which meets your requirements (e.g. size, shape, symbols, etc.). Fill it with the material of your choice (we used casting rock), and let it dry. Here is our plaque straight out of the mold:

We then sanded the plaque to remove any sharp edges and defects. Next steps involve a lot of painting. We started with the primer:

Then added second layer of paint:

Next step was to paint feature elements:

And finally, finish it off with a layer of varnish to protect the paint:

With paintwork finished our plaque was ready for mechanics and electronics to be installed. But this is a topic for a new story.

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