Terrain base board advice

[Ramses]

Hi all,

 

I'm thinking about starting a new project and I'd love to build a large terrain/diorama, but I'm fairly stuck on what to use as a base.

Ideally I'd want something that can be cut to size rather than modular, and that it would be easy to glue/fix things to, but I'm fairly new to the hobby and the guides I've found online haven't been super clear about pros/cons.

Does anyone have any advice on materials I should be looking at?

[Brother Tyler]

Anything I say would simply be parroted from the book Battlefields in Miniature by Paul Davies.

 

 

I used to refer to Games Workshop's book about making terrain, but I either put that in storage or gave it away after getting Battlefields in Miniature. Games Worshop's old book is still good if you can find it, but other guides are a lot more informative. I also recommend looking for guides such as those sold by hobbylinc.com (they have several guides on making vignettes, dioramas, and terrain). If you're interested, you can purchase Battlefields in Miniature from the publisher, Pen & Sword Books, or via your local/online booksellers such as Amazon. Note that you can get the ePub from Pen & Sword Books for much cheaper than the Kindle version available on Amazon.

 

The images below are several books I found at hobbylinc.com (and you can probably find some/all of them at other booksellers). Each image links to the book's page on hobbylinc.com.

 

 

Note that I don't have any of these books, nor have I purchased anything from hobbylinc.com, so I can't attest to the usefulness of the books or the reliability of the site. I merely offer these as alternatives to Battlefields in Miniature.

 

To provide a more useful and direct answer to your questions, let me lead off with some questions of my own...

 

Are you building this as a gaming board? Or are you planning to build terrain pieces that you can place on a gaming board?

 

My recommendation for a gaming board is to have a sturdy base, preferably something built with wood so that you can use proper fasteners (i.e., screws and nails) and joinery (depending on your woodworking skill level). The gaming board needs to be sturdy enough to support some knucklehead leaning on the board without falling apart, but it doesn't need to be engineered for 100 fathoms deep (you still want it to be light enough to move around easily).

 

If you're talking about terrain pieces, there are a variety of options for basing. These include chipboard, foamcore, high density foam, etc. My recommendation here is to use something that is thick enough that it won't flex too much, as too much flex can cause glued elements to become unglued. This can be mitigated with small nails/screws, or even more complex joinery (e.g., cutting tabs and slots). In most cases, simple glues such as PVA (most commonly associated with Elmer's white glue, but there are varieties) and hot-melt adhesives (i.e., hot glue) will be sufficient. I don't recommend cyanoacrylate (i.e., super glue) for basing as its crystalline structure isn't good with flexible surfaces, though it can be used for gluing details onto non-flexible elements.

 

I'm sorry that I can't provide more useful information, but I'm sure that more knowledgeable hobbyists will be along shortly.

[kabaakaba]

Use your favorite high density foam( virtually any from hardware store) for you landscape, I use carpenter wood glue it's basically PVA but way more strong. It's used to glue wood planks together to get wider or thicker planks and bars. It's hold good load and still very flexible. Also it's clear once dried. For buildings structures ruins u can use virtually anything but mostly it's plasticard, foamcore, some use abs :cuss:s. Also variety of plastic tubes, bars I-beams, angles and channels. It's all available on scale models shops. And check railroad modellers shops cause they have a lot of things for dioramas. Also I recommend look the book Battlefields in miniature @Brother Tyler mentioned.

[Firedrake Cordova]

It's probably also worth having a look at Mel Bose's YouTube channel.

 

Luke's (Geek Gaming Scenics) channel has some videos on making board if you look at the older ones. 

[Antarius]

15 hours ago, Ramses said:

Hi all,

 

I'm thinking about starting a new project and I'd love to build a large terrain/diorama, but I'm fairly stuck on what to use as a base.

Ideally I'd want something that can be cut to size rather than modular, and that it would be easy to glue/fix things to, but I'm fairly new to the hobby and the guides I've found online haven't been super clear about pros/cons.

Does anyone have any advice on materials I should be looking at?

If it's a single terrain piece I usually use MDF board. It's pretty cheap, relatively easy to cut with a saw/big hobby knife and quite sturdy.
It can warp though, so it's best to paint it (with either primer or some glue) on the bottom side as well, so the warping effect of the drying paint pulls both ways and cancel each other out.