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I have made lots of insulation foam hills recently. Before painting, I painted them with a layer of PVA+water to try and seal them. They're not painted with wall/house paint, but with artists acrylics. These acrylics obviously aren't as resilient as wall paint, so I varnished the pieces with both gloss and matt varnish after painting. This didn't actually help at all, and after only being used in 2-3 games they're already seeing chipping, especially towards the bottom. Is there something I can slap on there to make these less fragile? These are for my club so they will be used at least once every week and need to be very robust. Should I just coat them with several layers of PVA+glue or is there something else I can use?

Never used it on terrain but I have used some varnish used to protect boats for some of my props. It still chips eventually, but is a lot sturdier then most miniature grade spray on varnishes.

 Mymearan wrote:
I have made lots of insulation foam hills recently. Before painting, I painted them with a layer of PVA+water to try and seal them. They're not painted with wall/house paint, but with artists acrylics. These acrylics obviously aren't as resilient as wall paint, so I varnished the pieces with both gloss and matt varnish after painting. This didn't actually help at all, and after only being used in 2-3 games they're already seeing chipping, especially towards the bottom. Is there something I can slap on there to make these less fragile? These are for my club so they will be used at least once every week and need to be very robust. Should I just coat them with several layers of PVA+glue or is there something else I can use?

Ideally you would base the foam with mdf, card or cardboard, as the bottom is going to be taking the most knocks.
Then you PVA it and apply some kind of flock - sand, sawdust, tealeaves from teabags. The combination of the ballast and the pva gives you a nice resilient surface to paint on, PVA and sand becomes rock solid. You can mix PVA into poster/acrylic paints to make them stick better and have a tougher finish.

I stop here but you could then apply varnishes to protect the paint work.

i would layer the foam with a mix of white glue and water,then let it dry for a day and then spray it over with something like Mr.Surfacer as a primer.then put on the colors and textures,and over that again a mix of white glue and water,let it dry again and then a matt varnish.I used this method for some props and bases and its quite sturdy. Worked at least for me

Cheers!

If this is club terrain then it'll get a lot of wear and tear. I'd go with the basing it on MDF suggestion above. It'll make it much more robust.

If you don't mind the texture, covering the terrain with paper mache is a good, cheap and easy way to toughen it up. I just drape paper towel over it and give it a good soaking with PVA glue mixed with water. I'll often give it 2 layers and it becomes good and tough.

Step 1: BASE ALL FOAM TERRAIN.

I don't know what others do, but I tend to go:

Step 2: slather with glue (pva).
Step 3: Dump fine sand on it. When dry, shake off excess.
Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3, 2-3 more times.
Step 5: final coat. PVA+Water+surface tension breaker (dish liquid soap works. 1 drop). Consistency of milk. Slather over the sandy hill. Allow to dry. Tends to end up weighing a lot more, but feels like rock, not foam.

Step 6: Spray varnish (matt).
Step 7: glue felt to mdf base to stop it skidding over the table.

It may be overkill, but I've got hills that have lasted 10+ years with little to no damage. The surface tension breaker allows the glue slurry to not just flow over, but under and around each grain of sand and not just cover air bubbles - locking it ALL together. Takes about a week to finish a hill this way, but they last.

Hills with unprotected bases will start taking damage more or less immediately, starting with the edges chipping.

Thanks a lot for all the tips guys... looks like I will have to base the hills to prevent damage, and also do a final coat of PVA+water to protect the foam itself.

I have 3mm hardboard, that should suffice as a base, right? I know it warps horribly, but won't the thick foam on top prevent the hardboard from warping?