Building Better Boards

[Andym]

Another one I found recently....


https://robhawkinshobby.blogspot.com/?m=1

There's a few good Star Wars themed boards on there and his Wild West Exodus table with the Devils Tower from Close Encounters and the built in infinity mirrors is inspired!

[OSHIROmodels]

I do like the things Rob does. Very inspirational 

[Calimero]

Did someone mention Black Magic Craft, yet?

This guy have quite a few useful tips on his YouTube videos list;
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Rlv-ug-mtnXuMwlpcqFgg/videos

He mainly work with foam board type that are available in Canada (the "pink one") and dollar store (Dollorama) stuff...

[von Lucky]

Boulder Creek Railway / Luke Towan YouTube channel has been mentioned before in this thread (and elsewhere on LAF), but if you haven't heard/seen his stuff, he's very skilled:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjRkUtHQ774mTg1vrQ6uA5A

This video is an example of the stunning results:


Some builds are more complicated, but others drill down to individual elements. At the end of the day, building better boards is about a whole lot of elements coming together to add layers of detail.

[Jack Jones]

Hi All

I got my terrain boards out yesterday … I had them made a very, very long time ago, so long I have forgotten by whom.

Anyhow, I want to make some additional boards (undulating terrain and a wadi) but I’m struggling to find raw materials at the size I need them.

The boards are 24" x 24" (610mm x 610mm), made of dense polystyrene (not the flakey packaging variety). They are 40mm deep, but this isn’t so much of a problem as I will need to laminate for the heights and depths I need.

So … does anyone know where I might source boards cut to size … craft foam (the blue stuff – styrofoam?) would probably work too.





Cheers
JJ

[Jack Jones]

I had these guys suggested – look ideal:

https://www.custompac.co.uk/polystyrene-cut-to-size

Cheers
JJ

[Muddlingthrough]

Did someone mention Black Magic Craft, yet?

This guy have quite a few useful tips on his YouTube videos list;
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Rlv-ug-mtnXuMwlpcqFgg/videos

He mainly work with foam board type that are available in Canada (the "pink one") and dollar store (Dollorama) stuff...

I'm just getting back into the hobby and have been following him. I made some of his rubber flooring mat rocky dirt roads for my Republican Romans to stub their toes on. Working on some proper, paved Roman roads too.

One great advantage of living in a wintry hellhole like Canada is the easy access to extruded polystyrene foam insulating board. One of the major manufacturers has realized hobbyists use it and has started selling 2'x2' sheets at the Home Depot for $2.10Cad.

And the Dollarama is, obviously, a national treasure.

Though I'm having trouble sourcing corrugated paper currently.

[Andy in Germany]

I came at this from the other direction, having built model railways for some years now. My main interest was because I was building in 1:55 scale, which is close to 28mm scale wargaming. However, 1:55 scale is a very unusual scale for model railways, mostly based around narrow gauge models from the 1960's and a few even more niche oddballs who use it to make models of metre gauge European narrow gauge.

I very quickly realised what others have already mentioned; TT models will get bettered in comparison to model railways because they're handled so much more, but equally I'm learning a lot in this area that I'm able to take back to model railways, or will take back when I finally have space to make my model railway...

One major aspect I'm interested in taking the "other" direction is the idea of a game/story session. I think model railway builders often make lovely complete scenes, which I notice isn't always considered important in TT gaming, but we then just trundle trains about a bit in a haphazard manner. I'm working on a way to operate a model railway like a TT skirmish game with dice and a goal, and probably with some kind of chance cards to simulate things like breakdowns, delays, and customers wanting their goods transported on the train and the railway having to respond to these issues. It's a vague idea at the moment but as I get  more experienced in TT gaming I'm hoping to develop a working scheme.