Village Games' Blog

LAYING DOWN ON THE JOB…

As regulars of the shop know, many of us like to make our own scenic mats for our miniatures games.  It involves using acrylic caulk spread over a piece of felt followed by flock and static grasses being pressed in.  The process, which can be very successful, can be physically very taxing. You only have a limited amount of time to get the caulk spread out thinly and the flock/grasses added before it starts to “skin over” and dry out.  To compound the difficulty in this, spreading the caulk evenly in a thin layer usually results in the felt being pulled up, flipped around, stretched out and more all of which causes delays and eats into your working time.

As I intend to make many different mats for the shop, I needed to find a way to speed the process and take the stress out of the working time.  So I built a special jig for making the battlemats.  The jig is designed to tightly clamp down the fabric allowing the caulk to be quickly and efficiently spread.  It even allows the mat to dry under tension, so it won’t pull or curl while it is drying.  The jig is designed to hold mats ranging in size from 3’ x 3’ and  4’ x 3’ to 6’ x 4’ and even 8’ x 4’.

I needed a 3’ x 3’ mat for my recent trip to Rochester, so the jig was quickly pressed into service. The results was fantastic (other than the colors – I was testing out some new flocks, and I wasn’t totally happy with the colors)! I made the mat in all of 20-25 minutes, and after it had dried for a day, I trimmed the edges and it was ready to go.

I will post some updates as I make more, especially since I have plans to make mats with stonework, roads and cobblestones pressed into them.

Until next time…

Cheers!

Dan