Sectional Terrain: Hills are Rebuilt and Lots of Texture Applied

My first version of the 2, 2x2 hill tiles didn't work because I left exposed foam on the ends and did't do a good job ensuring there was a tight fit.  The right way to to do this is to cut some wood to ensure both a square fit and a dressed expose side.  Of course such a good idea isn't mine, I stole it from Eric from his blog and postings on the Lead Adventurers Forum (LAF).  I cut out a space for each side piece, cut some biscuit slots and then glued on the new sides.  You can see the boards match up a lot better than the previous version which can be seen here.

One pleasant surprise from this mini-demo work was the white glue and grout shell proved to be very tough and required the use of a razor saw to get the cuts started.  The harbors well for long term durability.  I also must apologize for a "shop safety" misstep in the first photo - you can see in the lower right that I put down the box cutter and left the blade exposed.  Thats a dumb mistake and I should know better.

 The new sides did provide me the chance to reconfigure the hill tops.  As you can see from the first photo of this post, the previous version's third tier was small (about 5" wide) and only on one board.  It looked interesting but didn't really provide a good space to either attack of defend from.  A few cuts of scrap foam from my trusty Proxxon hot wire cutter and "Ta-Da" a much bigger third level to desperately defend or charge up.  If you do any work with extruded foam I highly recommend you look into getting a Proxxon hot wire cutter.  It's a fantastic terrain making tool and I'm just mow getting over the learning curve to how to use it properly.

 A shot of the boards but together with the new terra forming in place.  I think it's a lot better than the previous version.

 Since I'm planning to put some artillery up here, I "needed" to add a pathway to roll the cannon up.

 Plaster and plaster cloth applied to blend the contours.

 A view for the other side.

 A shot of the large river panel set aside while the gap filler and plaster dry.

 Once the new hill sections were set the next step is to apply the tile your and white glue mixture.  I use a mixture of 1 part white glue to three parts tile grout.  It drys rock hard as mentioned above but can take up to 36 hours to fully dry.

While unplanned the newly grouted area kind of looks like a shark!

 I mixed up a large batch and proceeded to ground- texture the river board and...

one of the three remaining flat boards.  I didn't have enough grout to finish up the remaining 2 boards (which you can see to the right of the picture) so will need to get some more.

Once everything is textured the remaining steps will be to paint the boards light brown and then apply the static grass and ground foam.  There a light at the end of this tunnel.

Of course I still need to make some tree plates and finish the naval terrain within six weeks.

tick tock, tick tock...