0.14 Progress Update

I haven’t managed to finish anything, lately, but I have been a busy fellow, I promise.

First up, everything I’ve got going on.

What have I got going on?

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees
You’ll notice a veritable wilderness of Woodland Scenics trees. I’ll go ahead and say it: WS trees are a complete waste of money for gaming, and I’ll never buy them again. I’ve used the official $8 hob-e-tac glue, I’ve used superglue, I’ve used copious amounts of matte varnish, and I’ve used a fine mist of PVA. NOTHING will convince the damned foilage and bushes to stick to the tree armature on a regular and predictable basis. Not to mention that the armatures are completely out of scale for 20mm figures. Bah. These will get me through the first game, though. Once I finish up the bases, that is.

There’s Rules, then there are RULES
The astute observer will see that I have a home-printed copy of the groan-inducingly named “Troops, Weapons, & Tactics” by Too Fat Lardies. As an aside, I also ordered Sharp Action from the Lardies, which is a dangerous thing for any number of reasons. Anyway, to the task at hand.

I’ll be using TW&T over NUTS! simply because TW&T is so much more engaging of a read. Organizationally, the two rule sets are about equal, that is to say slightly shoddy. However, TW&T is chock full of designer notes and explanations, not only of the how, but also of the why. I really dig that. Another advantage is that TW&T includes a lot of discussion of historical tactics for the Brits, Germans, USA, and Russian armies. As a newbie, that is much appreciated, as well. I’ll eventually get around to running NUTS!, but for now the Lardies have me much more enthused, and I think that’s quite important.

Something to Aim For
Directly underneath TW&T is the Skirmish Campaigns scenario book “Heroes of Omaha and Panzer Lehr.”

You can’t miss it, for its cover is an eye-searing shade of day-glo green. This book contains three campaigns for skirmish level games, and the one that I will be concentrating on covers the initial period after D-day. The campaign follows the progress of a platoon from the 29th Infantry Division as it works its way inland from the beach head. I briefly considered picking up the D-day scenario book, but I don’t think I’d ever get the terrain finished for something covering the beach, landing craft, massive bunkers, dragon’s teeth, and such.

In any case, I’m slowly working my way to building up the forces for the first scenario of the campaign, which is why I have the following company and battalion support elements primed and based.

The Irresistible Lure of Tanks

The fun stuff...

You’ll also notice a pair of Tigers and Stug IIIs. No, I don’t need them, but I figured I should get the inevitable Tiger model building out-of-the-way and the Stug was so historically ubiquitous that I’m sure they’ll come in handy some time soon.

The Tigers are Italeri fast build and the Stugs are Armourfast. Both models were pretty much a breeze to put together, but a word of warning about the Armourfast kit: It’s very hard to locate the treads on the tank model, for there are no guides, tabs, ledges, or any other firm indicators as to where the things go. The proportions of the boxtop illustration and the model don’t exactly match up, either, so the illustration is not a lot of help.

Still, German armor. What’s not to love?

Last, but not Least

An Italeri Pak 40 with a MUCH too large base

And here’s a Pak-40 that I’ve been working on. I don’t know why, but I’ve based this thing on an incredibly over-sized sheet of polystyrene. I suspect this will cause problems in play. This AT gun will come in handy, as it’s a possible attached unit for Panzer Lehr in the Skirmish Campaigns book.

I’ve got the crew block painted and dipped. Some of the ‘servants,’ as Italeri calls them, were wearing camo smocks, so I got to try my hand at splinter pattern camouflage. We’ll see how it turns out as a final product. I was feeling pretty good about my effort, until I applied the dip, which really subdued the camo pattern.

Not pictured are a couple of segments of wall that I’ve sculpted out of Fimo. They didn’t get photographed because they’re still wet with primer. I think they’ll turn out well, but the modeling clay is not going to be a long-term solution. It just takes too much time to sculpt brick and stone patterns by hand. I’ll probably look into making or buying plaster molds for that sort of thing.

0.13 A Different Sort of Shooting

I complained about not having a tripod in an earlier post. I have rectified the situation with a true cheap piece of crap from the local evil overlords (meaning Wal-mart). It works for my purposes. I’ve put together a little comparison and contrast showing how I used aperture to control sharpness and light levels for a series of photographs.

I’m still not getting razor sharp focus. I live in a house with a wooden joist floor structure. I used a 10 second timer to take all these photos to eliminate hand/finger/button pressing shake, but I wonder if my breathing transferred through the floor to the camera tripod! In the future, I’ll be sure to clean my lens before taking shots like these, as well. Or maybe my lens is just cheap.

Only the closeups were edited (other than for size), and I used the always-free GIMP, which I’m actually not very familiar with. My photoshop install is on another computer, and I was too lazy to switch.

The Boys in Olive Drab

Light Shot...around 2.5 sec

Medium Shot...around 2.0 sec

Dark Shot...around 1.75 sec

Here you can see the difference a single click of the dial on the aperture control can make. I used the ‘dark’ photograph to do the following close-up.

Close up from the dark shot, 5% contrast boost, extremely slight unsharp mask

I’m going to have to paint better, now that the photography is improving. A mixed blessing, for sure. Here come the Germans…

Der Fieldgrau

Light Germans...around 2.5 sec

Medium Germans...around 2.0 sec

Dark Germans...around 1.75 sec

The lightest setting looked best for the Germans with their darker uniforms. Here’s a close-up.

Close up of Germans, 10% contrast boost and a very slight unsharp mask. From the light shot.

You’ll notice my paper background is so over-exposed as to disappear. I’m not sure that I’m a big fan of the look. Then again, I’m not sure that I’m not!

I should apologize for the crappy photographs, all taken from ‘man height.’ It’s lazy. That said, the point of this was to establish some baselines for myself and that is accomplished.

Command & Colors: Ancients

So easy. So fun. So rich. 

Onward, brave Carthaginians!

Wow, what a great game.

I’ve played Memoir ’44 for quite some time, and like it a lot, but I played Command & Colors: Ancients for the first time this evening, and I have to say that Borg’s rules system really sings in this implementation.

I got together with my friend, Ron, this evening, and played no less than four games of C&C over the course of 3 1/2 hours. Thoroughly enjoyable. I’d do a review, but there are plenty at boardgamegeek, if you’re interested.

I understand many people convert this game to miniatures. It’s sorely tempting, though I think I would just like to have figures on a mounted stock board, rather than doing custom modeled terrain for each battle. It would be totally cool to have little modular terrain hexes, though.

Must stay focused! Back to WW2 and complicated miniatures rules!

A Quick Review of a Shop

Tulsa Time

Tulsa, Oklahoma is the nearest city of any significant size to my home in Arkansas. I went there with my girlfriend this past weekend, ostensibly do some Christmas shopping. Being the nefarious sort that I am, I had googled “wargaming Tulsa Oklahoma” earlier in the week, and thus had a secret* secondary objective: to reconnoiter the local gaming shops and perhaps pick up some choice items for my wargaming needs.

I visited two shops, one being Top Deck and the other being The Hussar.

Now, Top Deck is a fine gaming shop. There was a thriving community in attendance, playing Warhammer, eurogames, and Magic the Gathering on a miserably rainy Saturday. The store was well stocked with various board games, Warhammer, Flames of War, and Victrix Napoleonics. That said, it was a fairly normal, if well-endowed, game shop.

The real surprise was The Hussar, which, as it turns out, isn’t a gaming shop, at all.

The Hussar

The Hussar is far and away the most pleasant geek (and there are many types of geekery) shop I’ve ever been in. The store is a hybrid of a reference book store, modeling shop, and finished miniatures store. The owner is gregarious, well-informed, and very welcoming.

I stole this from a facebook page. Apologies.

He carries a great number of Osprey titles, which I had only ever seen on the internet before this trip. You’ll also find a number of very specific titles about battles. For instance, instead of finding a general history of the allied invasion of Normandy (which is easily available at any library or chain bookstore), you might find a detailed scholarly treatise on the Battle for Carentan.

The shop is decorated with various militaria, from vintage uniforms to reproduction (I assume) shakos. The Hussar also carries a large number of custom/hand painted miniatures that are finished to an extremely high level. They are far too well done (and expensive) to serve as gaming pieces, but are a real joy to behold.

I don’t have much more to say about the trip, except that if you ever find yourself in Tulsa (God save you) and you have any interest in military history, you should not pass up a trip to The Hussar.

*it wasn’t really a secret.

0.12 Ah, the holidays

Sloth

It’s been a slow week for wargame preparation due to holidays and exams. Still, I managed to paint another eight American GIs, bringing me up to  a full squad. I really should have concentrated on trees and rock walls, as that’s all I lack to have a complete set of soldiers and terrain for the introductory NUTS! scenario, but I’ve been strangely reluctant to finish up. I wonder if I’m afraid that actually playing the game won’t measure up to the fun of painting and researching.

A dozen citizen-soldiers...

Ansel Von Adams
I’ve also been trying to get down to the nitty-gritty of miniatures photography. Or as much as I can without owning a macro lense. I’m using an 18″x24″ sheet of cheap watercolor paper as a backdrop. Light is provided by an overhead bar-shaped incandescent with fluorescent light as a general room ‘fill’ light. Normally I hate any light from fluorescents for pretty much anything, but the incandescent lamp seems to balance things out nicely. Correcting for white balance is also a tremendous help to getting good color.

A key step to getting more than one rank of miniatures in focus is to use a large (in number) aperture size. Large aperture numbers mean a smaller aperture, which is counter-intuitive as can be. Such is life. Unfortunately, small apertures let in less light. Even with a high ISO setting (ISO is an analogue to old film speeds), these photographs are extremely blurry. And these are the best of a dozen shots. This means I need to purchase a tripod. Joy.

18x24 Watercolor paper, white balance adjusted

For completion’s sake, here are the opposing forces: a full squad of Wermacht soldiers. Yes, I painted the shoulder-boards. No, there’s no way I’m going to attempt to paint collar insignia. The NCOs are up front. I realize no sane soldier would wear a soft cap into combat, but for skirmish gaming it’s awful handy to be able to quickly recognize a figure. Plus, it looks cool.

The opposition...would it kill Valiant to put in some action poses?

0.11 Further Adventures in Housing

Another Step

If you missed the first of this exciting series on scratchbuilding a simple house, you can find it here.

Having finished the house and terrain boards, I’m getting dangerously close to being ready for my first game (at which point my post numbers will cleverly move to the 1.* series). All that stands between me and commencement of Operation: Honeypot  is a few trees, a stone wall, and some practical understanding of the NUTS! rules.

Gathering of the Materials

These things, you will need them.

I’m building a heavy timber & stucco house. Ironically, the campaign that I’m eventually hoping to do is completely set in Normandy, where everything is apparently constructed of stone, but that’s beside the point for the purposes of this post.

These materials should be fairly self-explanatory, but here are a few notes, anyway:

• The blue-green thing is an ultra-cheap sculpting tool, available at any art supply shop.
• There in the back is a 1/32″ sheet of basswood. Basswood is slightly more expensive than balsa wood, but is a far superior material in strength and grade of finish. You’ll never see a decent architectural model made of balsa for this reason. Save yourself some grief and pony up the extra money.
• The white tub contains tile adhesive, which was recommended on other sites. It works fine, but takes quite a while to dry and has the smell of something horribly toxic. I’ve used it to simulate stucco on this project, but I think I might stick to drywall spackle in the future and save my few remaining brain cells for more important things.

An Inelegant Portal and other Mistakes

A not so clever solution for a removable door.

I’m playing a 1:1 skirmish set of rules, so I need to be able to get access to the interior of the house. This necessitates the presence of a removable roof and door. Above you can see my solution to a removable door. The large plank holds the sheet of basswood that is the double door to the house in place. I spent about 5 seconds thinking this up, and it shows. It’s especially hideous when the door is removed and you can see the log of wood behind it through the open doorway. In retrospect, I should have built some sort of ‘header’ that I could slide the door down through. It wouldn’t have been any more realistic, but at least it wouldn’t have been visible!

Moisture, meet cardboard. Cardboard, moisture.

Oh, boy. More screw ups. Here you can see that the tile adhesive has totally warped my cardboard walls. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to live with this in the future. It’s not very noticeable on the gaming table for this house, but this sort of warping certainly wouldn’t be acceptable on a multi-story building. Foam core may be the answer, though I find that stuff to be near impossible to cut with any accuracy.

0.07" polystyrene, thou art not easy to cut

Here you can see the house has been textured with tile adhesive and mounted to a sheet of 0.07″ styrene. The styrene was cut from a larger sheet with an x-acto knife. For a neat finish, beveling the edges with sandpaper is a good idea.

A Slight Rant
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I’m a nontraditional architecture student (nontraditional means old). As someone who is somewhat informed about building practices and structural engineering, let me just say that there is some weird shit out there in the miniatures wargaming world when it comes to buildings. Here’s a few notes about this project from that perspective:

• Heavy Timber beams span no more than 10′-12′. This means you need a column every 10′-12′.
• Structure in traditional building types will be regular and symmetrical 9.9 times out of 10.
• Columns do not need to be (and hardly ever are) massive to hold up a one or two-story house. A great many scratch-built  heavy timber houses I see on the internet have the structural members grossly over-sized, which leads to a cartoonish look. Which is cool, if that’s what you’re going for.
• Columns are never interrupted by a window or door. NEVER.
• Windows and doors have structure around them. In a heavy timber building, it’s likely to be visible.
• Door and window headers are typically at a uniform height. In recent modern times this height tends to be 6’8″-7′-0″. That said, it’s no set rule, especially before the advent of building codes.

I realize this is the equivalent of being dismayed that the muffler is mounted the wrong way on some obscure armored car, but there it is.

Moving On

The texture is all out of scale. Ask me if I care.

In spite of all my grousing about structural accuracy, I’m willing to let things like out of scale stucco texture slide. This makes me a hypocrite, but I can live with that.

The blue-green sculpting tool you saw earlier is too large for this sort of work. I need to find something else. You can see that I’ve added material to the base to create some sort of ground. I used the tile adhesive again. One benefit of building up the base is that it lets you hide little problems along the bottom of the model.

Painting

Base coat the various elements, then prepare to drybrush

The tile adhesive will take some time to dry. I let mine cure for 24 hours, and it was dry to the touch by then. The model still reeked of adhesive chemicals for another few days, but the finish has done just fine.

I’ve painted the wooden members black as a sort of primer. The stucco portions of the house have been painted in yellow ochre. I’ll be sticking close to my palette for the terrain boards, as stucco on vernacular architecture is typically made from local materials. The base of the model is done using the exact process that I’ve used on my terrain boards, so that it will fit in reasonably well.

End Result

The finished product...

And there it is. The stucco has been heavily drybrushed with Vallejo Iraqi Sand. The roof is black with a drybrush of burnt sienna from the craft store. The roof looks pretty good on the table, but it’s depressing me to look at it in this close-up photograph. I’ve added in some Woodland Scenics bushes on the house’s base, along with a few sisal string weeds.

This building is a bit frustrating to me. I made some stupid mistakes along the way, and I’m not completely buying the paint job. That said, it looks believable on the table, and having it completed gets me closer to that crucial first game.

0.10 Flocking Together: Terrain Boards the 3rd

We’re Going to Need Paint, Lots of Paint.

Burnt Sienna in Action

After the base coat of Burnt Umber, sand, and gravel has thoroughly dry it’s time to do some fun stuff. For these first boards I’ve constructed I’ve decided to paint in three stages. The second stage is a very heavy drybrush of Burnt Sienna. That sort of rich dark red is a very earthy color and mixes well with the Burnt Umber. Obviously. They both have Burnt in their name.

Loamy!

And this is what my coat of B.S. looks like. You’ll note the dishrag I’ve been using to dry my (cheap and practically disposable!) brush on. You’ll want to dedicate a rag or three to painting, otherwise you’ll go through paper towels at a prodigious rate, and that’s just not cool on many levels.

The third and final stage of painting the boards is to apply a lighter drybrush of Yellow Ochre to pick up some highlights. Honestly, I’m not 100% happy with this color. It contrasts a bit much with the darker brown and red of the Burnt Brothers. I’ll probably try another shade, next time.

I like ochre. Yellow ochre.

Then again, it really does bring out the gravel/sand texture. I didn’t get a good shot of it, but I laid on the Yellow Ochre on the road fairly thick, to simulate dried mud and dust (I followed up with a drybrush of Iraqi Sand, as well).

Dry, but not too dry.

Terrain Boards: The Flocking

Flocking can be made from sawdust and paint. If I had ever used the stuff before a few days ago, and had had any idea what it actually looked like, I would have tried to make my own right off the bat. As it was, I ordered some fairly healthy-sized canisters of Woodland Scenics flock. It’s not cheap, especially for what it is. In any case, I’ll be trying out the method detailed here next time I need flock. Which will be fairly soon, at this rate.

You’re going to need a good-sized brush, a small tub of some sort, some water, a drop cloth (or newspaper) of some sort, and a good amount of glue for this next step.

This could get messy...

Flocking involves spreading PVA glue all over your board(s). I water the glue down to a milky consistency with simple tap water. Apply the glue everywhere you want grass.

Here comes Santa Claus...

Shake flock all over your board. Do it up thick, as we’re going to harvest the excess later. Try to use a couple of shades of flock, so your battlefield doesn’t look like a manicured golf course.

The Flock Monster

I wanted to show that there was a little less wear in the center of the road and driveway. This may not be accurate in a time and place where horse drawn carts and wagons were still commonplace. Certainly, if you plan on using your boards for earlier periods, you shouldn’t have grass in the center of a road. In any case, I used a bit too much glue, and thus have a bit too much grass in the road.

Keep your excess.

So, there it is, a flocked terrain board. Note the excess flock, ready to be returned to its container? This particular board turned out quite well. But there are problems. Behold the next photograph:

The Ignominy of Defeat

Ok, so the problem. As a final step on my terrain boards, I’ve been going over them with another coat of watered down PVA glue. This makes them quite tough, and keeps them from shedding flock everywhere. I got this tip from a used Games Workshop book that I found.

Getting on to the problem, you’ll note that the board in the lower left-hand corner (the one we’ve followed through this little tutorial) looks quite a bit more…verdant than the other two boards. I have no idea why. I used the same methodology for all three boards. I can only guess that the milkiness of the other two boards is due to a) temperature during the curing time, b) humidity during the curing time, or c) a pva/water mix of thicker consistency than the one used on the final board. I really think it’s a mixture of a&b, as I used a space heater in the room where the final board cured, and a space heater makes for a very arid environment.

So, to recap, three things I want to experiment with next time:

• Something a little less bright than Yellow Ochre for my highlights.
• A thinner mixture of water & pva for the final protective coating.
• Forgoing the protective coating altogether, in favor of some sort of spray lacquer.

As an aside, this last photograph shows the level of completion that I’m at as of 11/22/11.  I’m getting closer to being ready for that first game! I need to finish the little house, create a bunch of trees, some hedges, and a rock wall or two.

 

 

0.09 Modular Terrain Boards-Part 2

The next step on the path to modular terrain board domination is to give the board form and texture. Most old country roads in Normandy (or Arkansas, for that matter) are somewhat sunken, as they’ve been worn down or graded thousands of times over the past. I thought 4-6 feet, at scale would be a good depth to give to the road. It’s an arbitrary decision, but I wield supreme executive power over my terrain boards, thank you very much.

After carefully marking centerline, widths, and depths, I began to excavate through the foam insulation (easy, if tedious) and the 1×2 boards (difficult, and tedious). I made the mistake of trying to cut into the foam, which just made an uneven mess, as the material is almost uncontrollable for this application. It does respond to sanding very well, and my other board went smoothly (har har har) once I switched techniques.

A note about carving through the 1x2s: I marked the depth and width I wanted to achieve directly onto the 1×2. Then I took my coping saw (and it works well for this) and semi-carefully cut to those marks in multiple places. Now, there’s no way to complete the cut, if you’re not going to completely sever your 1×2 (and I’d suggest that you don’t, as you’ll completely lose any structural benefit, which is 70% of the reason for putting them on there in the first place). After making the multiple coping saw cuts, I took a 1/2″ chisel and went to work. The earlier cuts by the coping saw make the chiseling controllable. I also used the chisel to rough in a 45 degree bevel at the edges of the cut, in order to simulate a bank. Yes, a picture would have saved us all a thousand befuddled words.

I’d highly recommend sanding everything and getting it somewhat smooth, otherwise you’re going to end up with unwanted textures on your board. Afterwards, a damp cloth is a good way to clean up.

I primed this board with some grey Kilz primer, but I don’t think that step is necessary, at least when using my procedure. I forgot (this illustrates something about the brain power of the writer) to prime one of my three boards, and there’s no discernible difference in the final finishes.

Cut, sanded, and primed.

I’ve used brown ACRYLIC caulking to do my roadbed. That acrylic part is very important, as silicon caulking cannot be painted. Caulking is excellent for simulating a rutted dirt/mud road. I picked up the tip from the always entertaining Lloydian Aspects. I used a cheap plastic sculpting tool to push the stuff around, but an old credit card and a toothpick or piece of sprue would get the job done. Give the caulk at least 24 hours to dry, or you’ll have a sticky mess. Add your roadway texturing sand/gravel into the caulk itself, before it sets up.

It's not handsome. Yet.

The next step is to lay down a base coat of paint mixed with sand and gravel. I’m going to be gaming in Normandy, so something rich and brown seemed right. I went with the always-loamy burnt umber. You’ll end up with a thick (but not too thick!) slurry. You’ll want to use a large cheap paintbrush to spread it about the board. Don’t be shy, put it on there thick and get 100% coverage.

Get dirty

Shake your container to mix your gravel and sand up before adding the paint.

Playground sand and some Woodland Scenics ballast

You’ll end up with this lovely cake-like finish. Resist the temptation, and don’t eat it. Let it dry thoroughly. The foam portions will take longer, which makes me thing the 1x2s are soaking up moisture from the burnt umber paint. Even though they’ve already been primed. No adverse effect so far, though.

Base color and texture applied.

0.08 Modular Terrain Boards-Basic Construction

The Ground for which We Fight

I’m going to break down my ideas and notes on building terrain boards over several posts. Otherwise, they’ll be unreadable. I won’t be doing a tutorial, per se, but I will try to give some insights, observations, and warnings along the way.

I really like the idea of custom scratch-built terrain boards, as opposed to draping a cloth over some books. I enjoy the act of making, so it suits me to a tee. However, if you can stand NOT to have custom-built terrain boards and are more interested in playing than building, I’d highly recommend avoiding them. Building terrain boards is expensive, time-consuming, messy, and takes up a tremendous amount of space.

My first foray into a modular terrain board system. I hate sanding.

Mr. Modular

One thing that can lead to a larger return on your terrain board investments is to build them in a modular fashion, so that each board can be used in multiple configurations and will be of use to you for future scenarios and campaigns. As a bonus, modular terrain boards can be made into sizes suitable for transport.

Above you can see my first (and only, at this point) attempts at modular terrain. There isn’t anything particularly innovative or useful about this layout. In fact, the only thing modular about it is that the boards are 12″x24″ in size and the sunken roads enter and leave from the same points on each edge. The first thing that I learned during modular terrain board building? Build them in squares. The square is a more flexible shape for a modular system, and the square’s just as easy to build as rectangles.

Materials Used in Basic Construction

• 3/8″ Masonite Board, or some other thin, but reasonably strong sheet of wood-like substance.
• 1×2 lumber
• 3/4″ wood screws
• 3/4″ rigid foam insulation (duPont, in this case)
• Drywall spackle, for smoothing out transitions.
• A can of primer. I’d suggest grey or black.

Tools Needed for Basic Construction

• A saw, of some sort.
• A drill, or a real talent at screwing.
• PVA glue
• A good sharp chisel, for any sunken features crossing the borders (rivers, roads, ponds, ravines, etc.)
• A few grades of sandpaper. A sanding block is nice, too.
• Some sculpting tools or small trowels.
• 2″ or larger paint brush.
• A cheap breathing mask, unless you’re a manly man.

My boards are made of a masonite backing, with 1×2 lumber cut to fit and placed around the edges to provide structural rigidity and protect the foam. The foam fills in the center. The construction should be pretty obvious, even from the not very useful photo I’ve posted above.

A few notes:

• Have the hardware store cut your masonite down to size, unless you have a large truck to carry it.
• ’1×2′ is a nominal dimension. 1×2 lumber is actually more like 3/4″ x 1.5″. This is a good thing, because the 3/4″ insulation is actually 3/4″ deep. The lesson is to physically verify dimensions before purchasing any materials.
• Carefully select your lumber. It’s likely to be at least slightly warped, and any warping really shows up at the scales we are working in.
• Don’t use a coping saw for any step in this process. I did, and my 1x2s are not very precise. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, but if you’re going to cut something, why not do it in a way that’s going to look good. The sad thing is I have a perfectly good table saw out in the storage shed, but I was too lazy to go and dig it out.
• Cutting and sanding foam insulation is extremely messy. Wear a mask, and do it somewhere you don’t mind have fine blue particulates all over everything.
• Screw things from behind. You’ll want to screw through the masonite backing into the 1x2s so you don’t have to deal with filling in screw heads on your finished surfaces. Also note that if you have a sunken terrain feature crossing a border, you can’t put a screw there.
• Buy paint for terrain boards in larger quantities. You can take a sample of your model paints down to any respectable hardware store and they’ll be able to mix you something very close to the same color. I get the paint in quart cans, and it’s a little expensive up front, but those cans will last a long time and cover many terrain boards.
• As much as sanding rigid foam insulation sucks, it’s the best way to ‘carve’ into the stuff, unless you have access to one of those fancy hot wire foam cutters. If you try to carve out with a knife, you’re going to have a bad day.
• DON’T FORGET TO REMOVE THE CLEAR PLASTIC FILM FROM THE FOAM INSULATION please.

Ok, there are some notes on basic construction. As with any sort of construction, measure twice, cut once. Be patient and think things through-you’ll waste less material and save yourself some frustration.

A Brief Interlude

I’m working up a terrain board post, and am building a new board to show the steps. Unfortunately for my painting efforts, the weather is humid and warmish. Too warm to run the furnace, so it’s taking hours and hours for things to dry.

Sunday isn’t looking that good for wargaming efforts, either, as I’m going to see the brand new, Moshef Safdie designed, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art that’s just up the road. You should be jealous: Just look at those beautiful Arkansas pine glulams!