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The tittle says it all. But most importantly where do I find this material in Canada. And what is the best material to use for terrain bases.

I personally don’t use or like terrain basing other than on trees/bushes which I just use round plastic bases, for your needs, try plasticard or sheet metal.

Wood.

Or, even better, do not base your scenery.

Thin hardboard tends to do the job but it's quite heavy.


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Also for smaller pieces ive seen redundant CDs been put to good use.

I have been wondering the same thing.

How thick should the plasticard be to avoid warping?

What kind of woods? I gather that MDF is still liable to warp (I know it is not strictly wood). Is thin (~3mm) plywood any good?


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 Flinty wrote:
Thin hardboard tends to do the job but it's quite heavy.

I'm guessing hardboard warps less than its lighter MDF cousin?

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Also for smaller pieces ive seen redundant CDs been put to good use.

I've actually got a piece mounted on a CD They do somewhat limit to terrain in size and shape though.

 Haighus wrote:
IHow thick should the plasticard be to avoid warping?

Depends on what you want to do. I use 1.5mm thick plasticard for my scenery pieces and it becomes rock solid in conjunction with a layer of sand and PVA glue. I can easily hold a large piece (8" or more across) on one edge and experience no bending from the weight of the terrain. I don't put heavy metal objects or rocks on it, though. Mostly plastic with some wood and ceramic plaster (which tends to get a little heavy).

It also depends on whether you build interconnected supports into your terrain so that strain on one part of the base gets distributed to other parts as well.

I'm quite the fan of plasticard basing as it's a flexible material that works great as a base plastic terrain as plastic glue welds the pieces together as you would expect, and being flexible it can take a bit of strain to avoid cracks (more so with an added layer of PVA glue, which is somewhat flexible, too).

I use 1.5mm plasticard specifically because it keeps the terrain base low so as not to stand out too much as the main feature. As far as durability is concerned I'd say that's where you start to see good and consistent results for what you would typically put into a terrain piece at the scale we play. 1mm seems a little too thin for my taste, though it might work if you build light or for smaller scale. I've seen 3mm plastic boards used for terrain. You ask me, that's doomsday prepper size. If for some unfathomable reasons yo want to pack an actual rock (not a pebble, not a stone, a rock) on a base, you may want to start with 3mm thickness. Though at that point the thing holding everything together is the rock and the plasticard sheet is for detailing...

Ramble over.

Sintrex is pretty good, but quite expensive compared to MDF.

Masonite or hardboard is probably your best bet for long term durability.

Believe it or not,cardboard!
Find a box that is made of a rigid cardboard(not easily bendable). Coat both sides in pva,this makes it waterproof and less likely to bend.
When dry, stick on your scenery then go round the cardboard with something like grout or plaster.
You will have a scenery base that is very tough and does not bend.

the least warpy is quite expensive.

You want to used Foamed PVC, 5mm is usually good enough. Looks like foambard w/o the paper and without all the air holes.

You could go to Home Depot and get sheets of 1/2" or 1" pink insulation foam, MDF board (also works great for display boards, but cutting it in anything but straight lines is a bitch unless you have the tools), a couple sheets of foamcore stuck together. Lots of options!

Haven't tried it myself, but I've seen terrain building vids that claim coating the underside of a foam board base will un-bend it and let it lie flat. It makes sense--you have a compressive effect on both surfaces, cancelling each other out, instead of compression on only one surface.

This video by Wyloch shows the before and after, around the 2:20 mark.

The Allfather wrote:
The tittle says it all. But most importantly where do I find this material in Canada. And what is the best material to use for terrain bases.

As others have stated foamed pvc is pretty good and wont warp.

you may have some luck asking some sign shops if they have cut offs or maybe stock you could purchase. otherwise you may be able to find plastic whole salers. and then ebay and amazon probably has it.

they have everything.

 Flinty wrote:
Thin hardboard tends to do the job but it's quite heavy.

A heavy base can be good, to help stop the terrain from moving around or tipping over on the table.

I tend to use foamed PVC or foam board for most of my buildings, with Masonite bases for strength and weight.