Basic terrain boards on a budget
By Leondus

Gaming boards are easy to make and less costly then most expect!

• My first attempt at making them cost me:
• $1.00 for a sheet of installation foam
• $2.50 for a bag of scenic flock (295 cu. cm)
• 45 cents for 4oz bottle of school glue
• 78 cents for a 12x12 hard floor tile
• 52 cents for a 6x6 hard floor tile
• $1.00 for a spray bottle.

I already had paint which I use for my miniatures, but Wal-Mart sells really cheap bottles of Delta Creamcoat acrylic paints for 44 cents each.

I also owned ( I do leather working) which is the Dremel 1550 VersaTip (LINK), which is what I used to cut the boards.

One bag of scenic flock made 4 boards for me.

Total price for 4 12x12 boards, $5.73.

What you need

• Sheet of installation foam (thickness .5 of 1 inch)
• Scenic flock
• PVA glue
• Floor tile (6x6 or 12x12 inch)
• Spray bottle
• Paint (brown, tan, green etc)
• Wire or hot knife cutter

Making the boards

Hot Knife

Take your sheet of installation foam and set it on a hard surface (I used a sheet of plywood) and place your tile on it.

Place your hand/fingers on the center of tile and cut along the edges with your hot knife. If you need both hands free use something heavy. I have used a coffee can filled with rocks before which worked great.

Each tile should be 12x12 or 6x6 with smooth clean cut.

But I have a wire cutter?

If your using a wire cutter, take a razor and make a larger square of the tile your cutting by .5 inches.

Cutout the square with a razor and then place it on a can of food or coffee can.

Center the tile with the edges of the foam exposed along the tile edges.

Turn on your cutter and start!, start in the center of the edge moving along unit you stop were you started.

You will be short a gaming board or two by adding .5 inches, but it works

Sealing the boards

I was told by doing this it helps strengthens the board flock?? (can't really remember the conversation with the guy).

First you’ll need to seal each board by taking small cup and mix some PVA and paint, I use a 75% PVA to 25% paint.

Coat each board and let dry. You can coat each board with just PVA, but when it dries you’ll see little cracks.

Next seal the boards again 50% PVA and 50% paint.

Again you can just do this with PVA. But do this until the cracks disappear.

Covering the boards

After everything is dry after sealing the boards, take your spray bottle and mix hot/warm water with PVA and shake it up.

Lay out some newspaper and spray each board with a good coat of PVA/water mix.

Sprinkle on some scenic flock and let dry. Then tap it a few times, removing excess flock.

Now look at the board. If it needs more flock then repeat the above. If everything looks okay, spray each board again with a mix of hot/warm water with PVA.

Putting your boards together, they should look something like this....