Hello, I have been working on making a jungle/forest themed table using the scenic materials that are used for building dioramas, and the problem I am having is that the turf I am using does not stick to MDF well at all and can't really withstand having a game played on it. The turf likes to come off if you so much as touch it, and falls all over the floor when I tilt the table to move it. I've attached a picture so you all can see exactly what I am talking about. I think that I am probably not using a strong enough, or maybe even not enough glue to keep the turf stuck onto the table, but I also thought that maybe I didn't use a good material for the job. I was wondering if anyone might have any ideas about this issue and what I should do about it. Thanks!
One trick with these materials is to spray thinned white glue or acrylic varnish or podge so it soaks and becomes stronger. Check his video collection for more uses.
I used grass mat cut to shape and size glued down for my turfed areas. Noch (Germany) - model railway terrain stuff - does mats in various sizes (from A4 sheets to 4x4 and 4x6 full table sizes (roll). You glue it down and while the surface may occaisionally shed, it should last longer than just gluing flock down. (A full board (1200x1200) will take a while to do. Many aliphatic adhesives will shrink as they cure, and with something like this, it means ripples in the surface, so only do a small section at a time.)
You will probably need to glue the everliving hell out of it. I'm talking tacky glue before the flock goes down, then putting thinned glue into a spray bottle and spritzing the entire board multiple times to seal the flock to the board. Possibly multiple times, as well. glue on painted board, flock, glue on top. Glue on top of flock, more flock of a different color, glue on top. Repeat ad nauseam.
Some other things that came to mind later: Is the yellow a photo problem? Or is this one of those melamine/plastic coated boards (probably with a rough texture on the other side)? I can imagine the smooth surface being a problem with glue. OTOH normal MDF could be drinking some part of the glue, the turf sponge drinking the other part, and not binding to each other. Anyway, I would paint the surface to something useful, that pale yellow is too obvious even if not as bad as the photo . If you paint it (darker) green, brown and grey (nature colors), and apply green turf over the green paint, overlapping a bit of the other zones, it would be way less obvious. BTW, jungle ground leans towards brownish soil, full of roots and dead plants, green only for some kind of forests. Mixing different colors of turf (sawdust, or whatever, even "long" fibers) helps making things look realistic. Don't throw away the splotches that fall. They can be used for bushes and trees, or grinded with old blender down to turf, or glued back as bumps.
My "lock down" solution is a mix of water and PVA (dilute the pva to a thin milk consistency and add a drop or two of a surface tension breaker, like a dishwashing liquid). Pour into a spray bottle and liberally spritz the living bejayzus out of whatever you want to stay sealed. Holds grass, flock, sand down and in the latter case, when it dries, it makes the sand set like a rock layer (it flows around and between the grains, filling the airspaces, and bonding it all together).
Solution I went with was cloth that looks like mottled dry mud (like dry season amazon) and then lots of large textured wood ovals and irregular shapes covered in traditional flocking. This gave not only a good tack for the flock, but a two layer look to the board and abit of physical variation. That said: flock is always gonna fly away. No amount of glue will keep it there forever, in my experience anyway Sent from my SM-J320P using Tapatalk
This was super helpful; I'll probably be trying a similar concoction with some Elmer's glue to see if that works. Thanks! The yellow in the photo is where the flock came off the board completely. The board is semi-smooth MDF, so it's probably drinking up a lot of the glue. This is the first time I've ever tried making a board like this; when I started I was trying for a sort of springtime thaw in a temperate forest on Dawn and there was going to be lots of snow on the ground, although I later changed my mind and decided to make a more versatile board for narrative purposes, so I could say that it is anywhere in the Human Sphere that has a temperate climate. With that in mind, I might try sprinkling a lot of dirt texture all over if that would make it a bit more realistic. EDIT: Also, does anyone have any suggestions for trees that would fit this sort of environment and where I could get some models that would work for Infinity miniatures? Almost all of the options at my local hobby store would be comically small for our 28mm dudes unless I'm using them as large bushes.
Look for O-scale trees for train layouts on ebay, those should be the right size and affordable. Or you could try and make them yourself, which probably would look much better anyway. Edit: Thought i was answering another thread but wasn't, pine trees could fit on a jungle board but you should go for more jungle type stuff, the channels of the 3 videos i posted have deciduous trees too. Maybe the "huge tree" idea will work well for you, worked for Endor :P
I bought a whole bunch of ~6" tall trees marketed to Model Railroaders, they're even sold by species of tree. Considering that they filmed a lot of the Endor scenes (especially the speeder bikes) in Olympic National Park in western Washington state, it's not too unreasonable for a non-tropical rainforest.
That actually reminds me that I visited the Redwoods National Park two years ago and have visited Oregon many times. There's pine trees as well as deciduous trees everywhere, and the whole area is temperate. Guess I know where to get my inspiration from now! By the way, where did you get those 6" trees from?
Woodland Scenics has O-scale trees, with tutorials on their site. You can also watch Greenleaf Terrain videos on YouTube for inspiration. For flocking check out Terrain Tutor on YouTube, he does trees as well. Painting the surface first is a must. After all the glue applications you can also hit it with a mat sealer too.
They're made by Bachmann. Found them in a Hobbytown USA, though you can probably find them in Hobby Lobby, too. 6 trees in a pack, IIRC, for ~$12 if you get them in a big-box store like Target, $16 if you get them from the Walthers model railroad website. Trees range from 5-6" tall, and are advertised as being HO scale.
This time of year you can find alot of cheapy pine trees at hobby shops and dollar stores. They tend to have 'snow' on them, and are not as high of quality, but as they say, 'Quantity is a quality of its own'
