In a move very unlike me, I started early on the game we intend to run for Christmas Game Day. I fear I still won't make it without rushing and late nights, but that's how it goes.
Since no one else stepped up I took it upon myself to decide we're playing Rage Track. Partly because I just revamped the rules with some good ideas, and partly because I had a real itch to build a Rage Track terrain board.
Setup
First I checked with Eric on the table size he had available, and I settled on a 4' x4' board, in two 2' x 4' sections. This I can transport, and it will fit on his table (mostly, it will hang over a few inches).That decided, I purchased a sheet of 1" pink insulation foam for the terrain, and a 4'x'8' sheet of hard board for the base. Not that I need that much, but it's significantly cheaper than buying the pre-cut 2'x4' pieces and it won't go to waste.
The first hurdle. I don't have anywhere in the garage big enough to layout a 4'x4' anything, except the floor, and that wasn't likely to happen. So the first thing I had to do was build a quick table to sit beside the worktable I already had, thus giving me the space.
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| Quick table to sit beside my worktable |
This worked great for laying out the boards, allowing me to plan out the roads and terrain. I was able to mark the roads, and do most of the rough cutting and fabrication. Then, of course, it went off and got cold. Really cold. So all I could do is fit and cut pieces, but I couldn't glue anything.
Moving On
Since it was too cold to glue things I had to move them inside to the basement. This had the nice benefit that I had to straighten things up a bit when I did, so that's nice.I got the board pieces in place and glued, then started filling and covering with Durham's Water Putty. I love that stuff!
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| Adding putty, sanding, detailing |
I had to do the detailing in the basement. That's...messy. But there wasn't any other way to do it, so I just abandoned all sense of order. I'll clean it up at the end.
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| Detailing had to be done once the pieces was glued in place, so had to be done downstairs. |
Once the board was puttied and set, I moved on to finishing the cave road. Due to the design of the board once the "roof" is in place I won't be able to reach in there for painting. Moving cars is fine, but painting would be a nightmare. So that was finished first.
The roads were painted black, and the ground brown to clarify positions. The rock was painted and finished, and then the roads were covered in fine sand for texture.
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| The cave had to be completed before anything else. |
The roads were painted black, again, and the ground parts were covered in sand. The edges were coated with putty, then coated with a layer of wood glue, then painted black. The paint is just to give it a finished look, but the putty/glue layers actually toughen it up pretty good.
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| Road and ground coated, and the road painted. |
The roads were drybrushed and the road lines painted. Minor touch-ups to sand parts missed, and additional wood glue coats were applied to "high use areas", or rather areas I think will be high use anyway.
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| Road lines added, and the start line! |
Today I started the flocking of the board. It's going well, I'm half done with this board now (not in the photo though). I'm going sort of slow, trying to make it look really good. I'm using my own blend of flock and static grass that looks really nice. It doesn't show up here, unfortunately.
That's where I am now. I will update when I have made more progress.
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