Charlie's terrain boards (first 4 completed, and renamed this thread, Jan 5)

[Charlie_]

Thanks for the tips and advice so far folks.

I've started building the new boards and plan to take some pics this weekend...

I have another question concerning my mysterious warping......

I believe when I built my first boards I attached the foam to the mdf with 'no more nails' or some such product. I wonder if that could have caused the warping? It will have been consistently used on all of the 'river boads', and they've all consistently warped in the same way. The plain boards (just MDF with wood battens) have not warped.

So if this product is acrylic (water-based) and used on unprimed MDF, could it be the cuplrit?
Do I need to find a non-water-based alternative?

Would the hot glue gun be appropriate?

[modelwarrior]

Could be. Basically mdf warps if it absorbs moisture.

Can you seal the boards before using the "no more nails" if you still intend to use that process ?

[Charlie_]

Could be. Basically mdf warps if it absorbs moisture.

Can you seal the boards before using the "no more nails" if you still intend to use that process ?

I have tried out sealing one board with spray primer..... but geez, to do both sides of it and the edges, it takes an entire can!

I experimented sticking a bit of foam off-cut to some spare MDF with the hot glue glue, and it looks really promising. Very secure, and doesn't melt the foam. And obviously the glue isn't going to warp anything like other things might do.

So I'm currently leaning towards hot glue or perhaps some sort of solvent-based 'liquid nails' product. Still interested to hear peoples thoughts on the subject.

I've assembled a few boards now, here's a pic. This is with 12mm MDF and 25mm battens. In terms of storage practicality and weight, compared to my old ones (which were 9mm + 20mm) it's really not that much different.

On the right is a 'plain' board, on the left is a 'river' board awaiting its foam (with the grey primer). For now I've put it under a lots of weight to let it settle, I'll bring it out again later in the week and do the foam layer inside the frame.



And here's a closeup of the two boards edge-to-edge, to illustrate the construction methods clearly.

[SteveBurt]

Brush on primer is much cheaper than sprays, and really no need for sprays with large flat surfaces

[Codsticker]

I have tried out sealing one board with spray primer..... but geez, to do both sides of it and the edges, it takes an entire can!

I experimented sticking a bit of foam off-cut to some spare MDF with the hot glue glue, and it looks really promising. Very secure, and doesn't melt the foam. And obviously the glue isn't going to warp anything like other things might do.

So I'm currently leaning towards hot glue or perhaps some sort of solvent-based 'liquid nails' product. Still interested to hear peoples thoughts on the subject.

I wonder if the issue with warping is that water based glues are going to interact differently with the wood than they do with the foam; they will set up on the surface of the foam but soak into the wood. Either hot glue or a solvent based glue may get around that. What about contact cement? A little tricky to use possibly as it can get sticky and messy.

[Burgundavia]

You could try sealing with PVA and use weights to keep the board from warping while it dries. Cheaper that way

[Charlie_]

I wonder if the issue with warping is that water based glues are going to interact differently with the wood than they do with the foam; they will set up on the surface of the foam but soak into the wood. Either hot glue or a solvent based glue may get around that.

Hmm yes, that does seem to make sense. I think I'm going to go with the hot glue gun!

You could try sealing with PVA and use weights to keep the board from warping while it dries. Cheaper that way

Yes I am definitely weighting everything down and leaving it for about a week as it dries.

Brush on primer is much cheaper than sprays, and really no need for sprays with large flat surfaces

Yes, I think if I do keep on priming them I will find an appropriate brush-on one rather than the cans. What sort of primer should I be using?
But I might not bother with the priming stage if I think the solid construction, hot glue gun rather than water based glue and a week under heavy weights will do the job.

[SteveBurt]

Any household latex-type undercoat will do the job as a primer. Even emulsion works well if you have some cans lying around as I’m sure most of us do.

[Charlie_]

Here's the first river board with the foam attached. I used the hot glue gun...

I had to cut the foam into small sections, otherwise by the timer I'd applied the hot glue all the way round the first bit would have cooled. Wasn't a problem doing it in sections though. This foam cuts really well with a sharp knife, the hot wire cutter isn't really needed.



And here's some 25mm tiles I've used to plan out the different boards. Six examples of the sort of layouts I will be able to get!
The first features here will be a narrow stream (enough to be an obstacle but not a full width river), with a small wooden bridge plus a forded section, lots of winding pathways, and eventually some full sized roads and a village board. A big river with a stone bridge will be in the pipeline sometime in the future.

[Burgundavia]

Those look great. The edges look to be fairly beefy wood - what thickness is the bottom?

[Charlie_]

Those look great. The edges look to be fairly beefy wood - what thickness is the bottom?

It's 12mm mdf, with 25mm battens.

It means they are heavier than my old ones, but not by much to he honest. Still very easy to handle. They have a satisfying heft to them, and won't be much more of a problem to store, now I've got lots of under table space.

[Charlie_]

Just an update here, I got the first four terrain boards finished.

One river section, one with a roadway, and two plain ones.

The new construction method seems to have worked well!

I had another two threads on this board asking for tips too, one about water effects (I went with painting it a suitable colour and then two layers of mod-podge gloss on top. Will more layers make it glossier do you think? The photos don't quite capture the slight sparkle it has).... and one on ground texture colours (I made up some samples from my vallejo paints, and took them to B&Q, and had larger pots made of 7 different shades of brown and beige!).

I've renamed this thread and will put all further updates and any questions that arise here.

I ended up re-doing the roadway to get it just how I wanted. Originally I had just left it the same texture and colour I'd done the whole board, and just left the flock off. But it didn't quite seem good enough.... I repainted it, using the same colours, but this time mixing a little sand in with the dark base coat, hoping to get a better texture. This worked, and also had a really nice side effect I liked - it gave a bit of a dark (wet mud?) border between the well-worn roadway and the grass, and the repeated stages of drybrushing the light tones hit the edges of the grass too and helped give a nice blended effect. So I'm going to do this for all the future roads - flock, leaving the road unflocked of course, and THEN paint the roadway from the dark basecoat up, letting the paint hit the edges of the grass a bit.

I also have got some trees and bushes permanently fixed to the river board (well in the case of the trees it's just the bases that are stuck done, the trunks can be removed if need be). Makes storage trickier, but it does look better than separate trees on bases. I can afford to have four or five boards like this that can just be stored on top of the permanent table.

Much more to come!

[Silent Invader]

They are delightful!

[snitcythedog]

Generally, I am not a terrain board fan, but these really do look nice.   

[HerbertTarkel]

Solid work, they look great!

Like others, when I had a games room (I am in a place where I don’t have the space, for now), I used IKEA tabletops - actually their screw on round legs, too! The genuine affordable nature of the IKEA stuff, and accuracy, was easy. And I did have access to a full wood shop, but it was just easier to do this. The wood shop was part of a museum, so the tools were really good, I just went with the IKEA solution.