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Home -> Reference -> Bases For TerrainBases For Terrain
by Gary James
Almost all terrain pieces will need some kind of firm base. The base
adds strength to the model and allows a bit of landscaping to help it
blend into the gameboard. I use three types of base - thin card or
foamcore, corrugated cardboard, and plywood/MDF. The commonest problem
with bases is warping after the model is finished and the heavier the
base, the harder it is to make, but the less likely it is to warp. You
pay your money and take your choice! See the materials
section for details of each material.
This is the lightest and weakest kind of base. It is only suitable for
very small and light pieces of terrain such as
fencing,
archeotech hoards or Epic
40K plastic ruins; or pieces that are quite heavy and strong in
themselves, such as the
packing
cases shown elsewhere on TerraGenesis. I use picture framing card
because it is quite sturdy and you can buy offcuts cheaply from picture
framing shops. Thin stock such as this tends to be OK unless you cover
it with
flock or sand - it is the application of glue to only one side
of a material that tends to make it warp.
Corrugated cardboard
Very thick corrugated cardboard can be used quite successfully for bases
but you really need to use two layers. Glue the layers so that the
corrugations run at right-angles to each other to minimise warp in each
direction. I used a corrugated cardboard base on the
Lizardmen
temple and the fortified
tower. In the latter case I used corrugated cardboard because I
wanted to cut through the top layer to make the pond. This material is
quite difficult to cut - it can be easier to saw it with a hacksaw blade
than cut it - and sealing the edges of the corrugation can be
tricky...until now that is, because I have discovered how to do it! Buy
some of that brown, gummed paper that comes in rolls and is used to seal
parcels. Butterfly is one brand in the UK. Don't buy the plastic tape -
it has to be the brown gummed paper type. Get 2 inch wide tape if you
can. Then lick it (yeuk!) and stick it over the bare corrugated edges.
This stuff sticks like crazy to cardboard and you can tear it into
little bits to go around difficult corners. I highly recommend this way
of sealing corrugated cardboard - you could try filling the corrugated
edges with
filler bit it tends to fall out as the base flexes slightly.
Plywood and MDF
Plywood and MDF (medium density fibreboard) are the strongest and best
materials to use for bases. The down side is that they are the most
expensive and the most difficult to work. Note that even plywood will
warp if it is only 4 mm or so thick - I recommend 6mm plywood/MDF and
thicker. This type of strong base is essential on models that don't have
a great deal of strength in themselves (for example the
refinery
which has a 10mm plywood base). Cut the base out with a jigsaw, fretsaw,
keyhole saw or similar and then take the edges off with sandpaper, a
file or a
surform tool (a sort of cross between a rasp and plane). You
can always glue some foamcore as a top layer to the plywood or MDF if
you want a surface that you can cut into to make streams, roads and such
like.
