Sectional Terrain Update

 Sunday has seen some good progress on my new  sectional terrain project.  To revisit the goals of the project - I'm building 18-20 2ft x2ft double sided sectional terrain pieces (land on one side and water on the other).  The most immediate deadline is the HMGS Historicon convention with is less than two weeks away and I need the water side for some games I'm putting on.  The first step of the project was to fill in some gaps on the flat plywood (or water-side) of the sections.  1/4 inch plywood is extremely easy to work with but it's very prone to damage so some plaster work was needed to fill is some gouges and cracks.

 The next step is a little wood staining along the sides to dress up the looks a bit.  Once the board are finessed (both sides) I'll go back and re-cover the sides with a polyurethane finish for protection.

The next step was to figure out what color to paint the "water-side" - I was debating going with browns which would fit the James River locale for my upcoming Historicon games but that wouldn't be such a great palette choice for my blue water naval gaming so I opted for a standard sea blue.

 Here's a shot of three of the four 2x2 panels painted blue.  One tip - use the really cheap foam brushes (in the center of the picture) for this type of job where you don't want any paint slopping down the sides.  These paint "brushes" cost maybe $0.25 when purchased in bulk and do a good job.  Plus clean ups a breeze as you just toss 'em.

 A shot of the 4th 2x2 panel.

 Here's the 1x4 extension I built so my terrain boards can match up to Ernie's 5' wide terrain sections at Historicon.

 Here's a shot in the sun, where the deep sea blue stands out more.  I'll add some tinting post Historicon.

We had a visitor come by the work shop via our pool - a terrapin turtle.  It took me a good number of tries to catch the brute in the pool.  There pretty fast and will try bite a finger if your unwary.  At least I got a good work out chasing this guy around the pool.  To be honest, it was a lot of fun.

As I was releasing our little friend, he did remark that he thought the water sides were a "little to blue, too"  Everybody's a critic.