Factory

[matakishi]

I've just ordered £60.00 of cork from Siesta. Their products have changed since I last bought from them so Here's a quick run down of what's what:

Nevada Natural 305mm x 305mm x 3mm. This looks to be the 'standard' cork tile (like B&Q etc) but actually isn't. It's too thin, bendy and open textured. I've ordered a single pack to see if it's usable for anything and I'll report back.

A-B-Cork 300mm x 300mm x 4mm costs about £8.60 for a pack of 9 which is more expensive than B&Q cork. The tiles are the right colour and texture and a  little thicker and tougher than the ones I've been using up to now. I ordered 5 packs and plan to use these as my mainstay building tiles.

Biscay Wallcork 300mm x 600mm x 8mm very dense, very hard and comes in double size tiles. You get 4 for about £10. I ordered a pack or two to see how they work for terrain. Cutting them for buildings will be too though.

Previously I have bought (and still have lots of) Pincork 300mm x 300mm x 8mm which is an open textured thick tile good for stone walls and brick bases etc (see Boxer Rebellion buildings) and also good to layer as hills but no good for buildings as it's too thick to cut perpendicular.

Edit: Regarding delivery charge, if you order 2 packs of tiles the delivery adds just over 50p to the cost of a tile. Even at £1.50 a tile it's a cheap material when you consider you can get more than one building from a single tile. The small houses we made at my school club work out at about 30p each for the cork at the above tile price ( 12p each if you buy from B&Q)

[Jules]

Wicks sell them 7.95 for 9

[muppetman]

you need to spend over £50 or you get slapped with a £10 small delivery charge...

[muppetman]

Matakishi!!
Have a look at this one, i was thinking of trying it out..
http://www.diytools.co.uk/diy/Main/sp-2-1738-6623-floor-cork-tiles-unsealed-3-16%22-4.75mm.asp

[matakishi]

They look ok, a bit thick so it'll be tiring to cut out lots of windows but they certainly look usable.

[UncleRhino]

You are a tremendous inspiration to us all!  I love seeing how simply and yet effectively you use common materials to get a terrific finished project.

UncleRhino

[matakishi]

I've added an incinerator to my factory since I had a spare afternoon.





Details:
http://www.matakishi.com/factory.htm

[Ironworker]

That's really nice!

[Sangennaru]

cork? i can't understand why u use cork instead of plastic foam! i mean, that's sooo useful... what is the advantage of corck?

[matakishi]

I make all my wargaming buildings from cork. I prefer it to the normal choice of foam board for several reasons; It is easier to cut, easier to glue and easier to paint. Cork is far more resilient than foamboard and considerably cheaper to buy in the UK.

[fastolfrus]

It is easier to cut, easier to glue and easier to paint.

Agree on that, but we were given a stack of foamcore boards (48 boards 6 foot by 3 foot) from a conference.
Despite being free, they are awful to cut, fiddly to glue, take extra effort to paint. We were slightly surprised to find that the large boards warp considerably too.
Our only real advantage that stopped us going for cork ?
They were free.
But we might start using cork for some of the more important projects.

[Sangennaru]

well... first of all i find that cutting foam is quite easy... and there's also another advantage: the final project is more accurate! if you need to texturize it as a concrete wall, you just need to add some sand, and the same for a lot of other surfaces. if you use corck (very irregular, as shown in the picture), i can imagine that is quite difficult to give him a flat aspect, if you need it!

dunno, i never used it, but i used foam for a lot of projets! ^^

[matakishi]

One side of the cork is perfectly smooth. The other has a light texture which means you achieve a concrete effect without having to add anything.

If you prefer using foamboard then that's fine, nobody's trying to change your mind. However, since you've never used cork, you don't know which is better, you're just assuming.

[Aaron]

I have yet to find cheap cork here in the states, but I have to admit I have not looked too hard as I also have a stock of free foamcore.

One detriment to foamcore is that the foam wrecks blades in a hurry.