How to Make Custom Monopoly Tokens

"Monopoly" is one of America's most popular and widely recognized board games. A distinguishing feature of the game is its pewter game tokens. While many gamers might have a favorite, such as the battleship or the top hat, some gamers prefer to make their own pewter game tokens. By learning the basics of pewter molding, players can play a game of "Monopoly" with a variety of tokens, from dragons and knights to ballerinas and flowers.

Obtain a piece of soapstone that is at least twice the height, width, and depth of the token you wish to create.

Carve a mold of the token into the soapstone using carving tools. This style works well for simple tokens, such as a top hat or sword. For more complicated token models, it may be necessary to split the mold in half and carve half of the mold into each side of the mold. If you use the second, more complicated method, carve a small hole leading from the inner cavity to the outside of the soapstone mold so that you can pour the molten pewter into the soapstone.

Place a cooking pan on the stove and set the heat to the highest setting. Place the pewter into the cooking pan and wait for it to melt. To get an idea of how much pewter you need to place into the cooking pan, you can measure the volume of the mold using a simple trick. Pour water into the soapstone mold until the mold is full. Pour the water in the mold into a measuring cup to determine the approximate volume of the mold cavity.

Pour the melted pewter directly into the soapstone mold or through a funnel. Use a metal funnel, not a plastic one, as the molten pewter may cause the plastic to melt.

Wait for the pewter to cool into a solid mass, then extract the model from the soapstone. It might be necessary to carve away the soapstone from around the model to facilitate extraction.