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I just cut three 2'x4' pieces of foam insulation (about 1" thick), covered it in sand, and painted it. I want to put a coat or three of varnish on them because they will be moved around and will have terrain and models all over them. Should I use a coat or two of gloss and then a coat or two of matt? I want these to be pretty resilient. They are a bit flexible too and I'm not sure if the varnish will all stay intact. Any thoughts?

What varnish do you guys recommend? These are game boards covered with sand and painted not golden demon show piece so if I can get a decent can or two of varnish from walmart that does a good job I'd be happy. Thank you.

I have had great luck using thinned down white glue or wood glue. I did the glue coat before painting though. If every single inch of the foam is covered, you can use spray varnish from Krylon.

For the bendiness, have you thought about gluing the foam to 6mm or 9mm MDF? That's what I'm planning on doing for just the reason you mentioned.

Glad you asked this question though. I've been wondering the same thing.

The board is already been covered with sand and painted. My question is should I use gloss coat then matt coat because I heard that gloss coat protects better and the matt coat will dull the shine if the gloss coat. Or should I just not bother with the gloss coat? I need this to be protected well.

Polyurethane gloss then matt varnish will give more protection than just matt.

Yep. Go hit the hardware store and grab a quart of any Gloss Polyurethane.

Then, you can either choose to calm down the shine with a rattle-can of Krylon Matte Spray, or get a quart of a Satin polyurethane (still slightly shiny, depends on your preference).
I think Matte Poly comes in quarts, so take a look around and see what you can find.

 fenrir1997 wrote:
Yep. Go hit the hardware store and grab a quart of any Gloss Polyurethane.

Then, you can either choose to calm down the shine with a rattle-can of Krylon Matte Spray, or get a quart of a Satin polyurethane (still slightly shiny, depends on your preference).
I think Matte Poly comes in quarts, so take a look around and see what you can find.

This.

It will protect if better than any spray on varnish (thicker).

I have used it before on various terrain pieces to give them a good solid protective finish.

best of luck!