I put together a mock-up with bristles and it seems ok though I need to refine the construction technique and find some thing that looks like corn. I can take a photo if you're interested.
I would be interested, thanks
Bristles sound more promising than those pesky plastic doormats...
I have always baulked at building permanent hills on the boards as I always thought it limited their use and made storage harder. But seeing yours has made me rethink. It looks a hundred times better with the inbuilt hills.
Also being a butterfly and flirting between different types of game has also put me off building a dedicated board for one subject. I should really make my mind up and stick to one subject.
How much do you recon it will cost you to build the boards? Must be a couple of hundred quid?
Gosh no, Colin. Nowhere near that.
To get the boards to the current state has cost less than £40 GBP.
4 pack of pink styrofoam sheets - B&Q - £20. I'm only using three boards - so more than enough material in the fourth board to cut it up for the hills (although I've only used a bit of it, as I had some old offcuts of blue styrofoam from a previous terrain project).
2 x 1KG tubs of filler also from B&Q - about £4.
Cork bark for cliff bits, I had some already, but I guess to buy a bag of pieces - about a fiver?
Wood glue for sticking the foam - I had some, but say a couple of quid for a small bottle?
Texturing 'compound' = any old sand, any old splosh of matt emulsion, and PVA. Cost: pence, although I did have to splash out on a new 1L bottle of craft PVA - 99p
Two tall spraycans of matt black paint (Halfords) - £5.99 each.
Matchsticks - 1000 in a bag, 99p, craft store.
Coffee stirrers - free. Help yourself to a fistful next time you're in Starbucks.
Twigs for making logs and stumps - free, from the garden.
Gravel - sifted out of the sand, or used bits and pieces I already had sitting round.
Paint - I used paint I had - I guess a few pence worth? Emulsion thinned and sprayed on mainly. Spraying reduces the amount of paint you need to use by about 75%. Obviously you do need an airgun and a compressor though.
Total:
Foam 20.00
Cork 5.00
Filler 4.00
Primer 12.00
Wood glue 2.00
PVA 1.00
Matchsticks 1.00
Total £45.00 - but like I say, I didn't have to buy the cork, wood glue and so on...
However, now we come to the expensive bit, since I've bought about 25 pounds worth of assorted Woodland Scenics scatter materials and 'scenic cement' (which I suspect is probably just thinned PVA, but we'll see).
I'm also going to use probably half a bottle of 'Realistic Water' on the river - and that's £12 - £18 a bottle depending on where you buy it from.
So in total, to get the boards to a finished state - sans trees - probably around £85.
However, I've also ordered a couple of bulk packs of Woodland Scenics trees, because I want trees that appear to sprout from the ground, rather than wobble about on their bases.
So that's another £45. Yes, it's a lot of money and I could have made my own - but making 50 or so trees would have been a lot of time I probably don't have over the next few weeks.
By the way, although the simple wooden fences do perhaps give it a slightly North American look, I've tried to keep the terrain sufficiently generic that I can use it for other theatres apart from F&IW... Change the buildings, trees and accessories and it'll have quite a different look...
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June 13, 2011, 10:21:43 PM