Monday, September 3, 2012

Building Sectional Terrain, part 1

 With Fall-In now 2 months away, I decided I should get busy and build the terrain sections I need for the game.  I'm planning on five flat sections, each of which is 2 feet by 5 feet.  I'll also  build a river section just for some added interest.  The first picture shows the cut wood for framing the first 5 sections.  It's 110 feet of 1x2 stock lumber.

 Here are the first two frames that are assembled and bolted together.  You can also see the luan plywood I'm using for the top.  The design is intended to be very light but sturdy.  I cut enough lumber to have three cross braces going across rather than the one in the middle.  I wanted to make sure the measurements weren't off so I skipped adding two of the cross braces for now.  The luan plywood comes in 2x4 sheets so there will be some trimming to get them to fit a 2x5 frame.

 The frames are bolted together using 5/8, 2.3 inch carriage bolts.  It may be a bot of overkill for the project but I like the steam-punk look they add when the wood if finished at the end.

Bolt holes were drilled to allow the panels to be attached via the long length or the short one.  I'm not sure I'd really have these boards attached in a 6x10' configuration but one never knows and it's a lot easier to drill out the holes before assembly.

Well that's it for now.  Part two will have the other three panels completed and then I'll think about how to do the river.


2 comments:

john de terre neuve said...

I will look forward to following this.

John

Paul O'G said...

Thats quite a project - looks like you could dance on that!