Saturday, April 26, 2014

Help me with my wargames table?

My two doors have been sanded down to remove the old varnish and I've put black tape all the way round to try and stop damage.


Next comes the messy part. I'm going to use pva glue with sand and maybe plaster mixed in to give the surface some texture, but I don't know what kind of quantities I should use? Any advice?

7 comments:

SpacecowSmith said...

Hi!

I think that it may be worth a shot using Caulk instead of Plaster as its less likely to crack. It seems to be the material of choice with gamers at the moment!

I cant seem to find the link at the moment but I'm fairly sure that the chap who runs Kings Miniatures made a rather awesome board by using old tea leaves which gave a more forgiving surface than sand and even smelled nice which may be worth a shot too...

Either way, I can't wait to see what the final result will be like. I've also been tempted to get a board put together but alas don't have the space to store it at present!

All the best!

Warlord Paul said...

I've made a few sand/pva tables and have used plaster to make hills/cliffs in the past. I would say that they are both really rather heavy and respond really badly to being moved or knocked. If you're not planning on moving the table or storing on it's side you should be fine though. If you sand the tables roughly with a harsh grain you will make a pva mix adhere to it more easily. Have you though about using flock/sawdust instead of sand? Also, if you carve up some pink extruded foam for hills it is lighter and more durable than plaster. Most tradesmen's merchants stock some.

Warlord Paul said...

PS. To apply sand paint on some thick pva then throw on a 1 to 2 cm covering of dry sand. shake it and poke it around untill you're happy then seal it all with a 60/40 mix of water and pva applied with a plant spray set on mist. Do that until you can see the sand is well soaked and leave for a couple of days. Reapply more pva/water mix if required.

Orlygg said...

Plaster and sand both make a good surface, but can be very heavy when spread across a board of that size. Polystyrene tiles are far lighter and can be cut into shape too. I will look at your project with interest.

Orlygg said...

Plaster and sand both make a good surface, but can be very heavy when spread across a board of that size. Polystyrene tiles are far lighter and can be cut into shape too. I will look at your project with interest.

phreedh said...

Might be terribly late for this advice, but do consider to NOT use sand at all. Why would you want to push your miniatures around on what's basically a really large and coarse sand-paper? =)

Use caulk (safe, rubbery texture) and mix in saw dust and cork bits. You can chuck a few cork sheets in the blender and make a nice cork scatter that way.

Steve h said...

my advice although a little late would be to use chinchilla dust which you can buy at the pet store pretty cheap. it is basically really fine sand. if you want to add some rough ground areas then and coarse building sand to those parts. ]cheers
Steve