Terrain Bases, best material?

[Ssendam]

Hi All

Can anyone please throw some help/advice my way ...

For small terrain items (up to about 10cm x 10cm)I tend to use thin 3mm plywood which works fine. However, for larger pieces this seems to warp. What material is good for larger bits of terrain? 6mm MDF? I'm confused how some pictures of larger based items here look so thin yet flat?

Cheers

[dampfpanzerwagon]

I use various thickness of Plastic card, the sort that is used for 'For Sale' signs or making signs.  I find that I can usually 'scrounge' enough for my modelling needs.

Best thickness is 3mm and 5mm sheets.

When building terrain pieces I score the surface with a large modelling knife before adding the terrain piece. The groundwork is usually built up with DAS modelling clay over a thin layer of uPVA glue.

Just to confuse you I also use MDF. Medium Density Fibreboard in 3mm, 5,, and even 6mm thickness.

For more information check out some of my Flintloque terrain pieces for Barking Irons Online, see Flintloque Labels on my Blog. I hope this helps

Tony
http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/

[Cory]

I'll second the use of old plastic signs.

Non porous materials are less likely to warp, but warping is still possible if there is too much shrinkage in whatever you coat the base in. To counter this I use premixed grout for my covering as there is very little shrinkage. Even then on a large base I will cover the base in two or three patches each a day apart so that there is no uniform shrinkage.

[Captain Blood]

Plasticard (officially 'sheet styrene')

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=26058.0

[Ssendam]

Plasticard (officially 'sheet styrene')

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=26058.0

So the "rigidity" of the terrain piece is effectively from the basing texture (PVA, Sand etc.?)

[Mindenbrush]

When I did a 60" x 24" hill for my SYW Battle of Warburg game I used 3mm MDF base and then built the basic outline of the hill using 2" x 1" battens supporting more 3mm MDF for the slopes, top was a piece of 1" blue foam. Whole thing was then sanded down to give smooth slope and covered with a thin mix of plaster, PVA glue and sand.
Being hollow it was light but rigid.

[Captain Blood]

So the "rigidity" of the terrain piece is effectively from the basing texture (PVA, Sand etc.?)

No, even 0.75mm sheet styrene is quite rigid. In small sized sheets anyway.