Modular Polyurethane Gaming Boards

[King Arthur]

Hello Hivemind 

I am planning on building a set of modular gaming boards, 4 in total, that can (hence being modular) be used as individual boards or placed together as one large board.

Here's a rough sketch:



I am leaning towards using Polyurethane boards as these can sculpted using a chisel and also sanded down. I'd like most of the scenery to be part of the actual board, which is why I will for example carve out the stream bed and also sand in/down the dirt tracks, other features I plan to magnetise, like the houses and trees for ease of storage and also stability whilst gaming.

I have been influenced by the amazing work done by the chaps over at battleboards.co.uk and I am sorely tempted to commission them, but 4 custom modular boards would cost in the region of 2400 pounds I believe, so I would like to have a crack at making my own, in hope of that by having a great gaming table makes me paint more of my lead mountain 

Do you any of my fellow hobbyists have any experience with carving/sculpting and working in general with polyurethane boards? Is there a better alternative? I live in GERMANY, so I may not have the same product as UK/US retailers.

Cheers

Gary

[Connectamabob]

"Polyurethane boards" is a bit broad and/or unclear. I'm guessing this is a translation thing, where a regional term for a specific product is so excessively broad that it causes confusion in other regions (example: "polystyrene" in the UK being used to refer specifically to EPS foam).

Are you talking about foam or solid resin? Is it a commercial product, or are are you talking about pouring your own sheets/boards? Without knowing more it's hard to make any solid comments/recommendations, aside from about the extreme importance of dust management if you're going to do that much sanding. The amount of sanding you're talking about requires care regardless of material, but polyurethane in particular has special risks, so safe dust management would be super important here.

Over here, prefab polyurethane boards (both foam and solid resin) do exist as as commercial products, but they are rare and very expensive, as their uses are pretty uncommon. Pouring your own would be similarly expensive. Most people use EPS foam insulation boards, or MDF/LDF, due to relative low cost and easy availability.

[oldskoolrebel]

I'd recommend something like Styrofoam. I bought a box of twelve 25mm thick sheets. Each sheet was 600mmx600mm. It's expensive however it ticks all the boxes. I honestly cannot remember when I bought mine (it was a few years ago) but a quick google search reveals this website

This is the material I'm using in thread over here. I'm not a good modeller at all but I've found the stuff forgiving enough for me. I've glued it down to 18mm MDF, and last night I glued 6mm MDF strip around the sides to protect it. The surface itself is pretty easy to mark- this is ideal during the building stage but less so when you are read to play on it. In the past, just before painting I've painted watered down PVA glue across the whole board and once it was dried used some of Captain Blood's patented Basing Gloop (TM). This gloop is a mixture of sand, white glue (PVA) and paint. You could probably forgo the watered down PVA as this stuff dried rock hard.

A few years ago I used insulation foam from a DIY store to make these boards:



The insulation foam seems to have completely disappeared from sale. I purchased it from B&Q in Britain. There where a few oddities with this board. The size for one- I cannot remember the exact dimensions but two of these sheets, laid together, measured approximately 4' by 3'. I much prefer using the 600mmx600mm stuff mentioned above.

I did learn a lot using the above material. In particular that without further treatment (such as strip material along the edges) it doesn't last particularly well. Now I'm pretty sure that my handing of it has been rougher than some of the other guys on here. Especially since in the last 5 years I've moved house about 5 times! With at least two of them being 150 miles. It's also only recently that I've gained a safe storage place for all my gaming stuff.


During the construction of these boards I've found that a Dremel, a sanding block (I quite like the disposable foam ones- you can manipulate them to different shapes), and an air brush are must haves.

During my current construction I've realised that there are some other tools which would have been very useful; especially when attaching the strip material. Mainly sash clamps and a try/engineering square.



I think your plan looks good. I'd just ask what the scale of it is? How big is the cavern going to be for example. Where are the board divides going to be? I'd recommend accurately drawing the plan out using square paper, cutting out each tile and checking to see how modular a design actually is.

Cheers
Andy