Ok I am making a scariff board and have a few questions / problems, if anyone can help id appreciate it greatly.

1- Paste PVA to the board and apply sand as step 1, question, are people watering down the PVA?

2- The Sane seems to have darkened in some areas...where the glue was thickets I think? That normal?

3- In areas where it hasnt taken well or that you missed, do you just reapply your glue and then sand again(looks a bit messy when ive tried it)

4- Would you then seal with a spray glue to protect.

EDIT- Last question

5- If I feel the sand is too dark when done, how can I lighten it? Add lighter sand scattered about? Redo the whole thing with lighter sand? Any kind of spray?

Thanks

1- I usually water down the PVA myself....it doesn't need to hold any real weight and it goes further and easier.

2- I've had it happen, it probably means the glue has saturated the sand. it may lighten when it dries fully.

3 - Yep. Though i must admit i've never done such a large area with actual sand. However it shouldnt be too messy if you are caerful with the new glue, and the PVA will dry clear anyway.

4 - Yes, absolutely or you will be shedding sand very quickly!

Like i said i've never actually done such a large area with shand/pva, but can't see any reason why this wouldnt work

If your sand is too light you could dry brush paint or lightly spray it.

Otherwise instead of using standard builder yellow sand you could look for some white sand and mix it together prior to gluing.

9 hours ago, VAYASAN said:

1- Paste PVA to the board and apply sand as step 1, question, are people watering down the PVA?

I am almost done with my sand/desert mat ( pics for reference). I used caulk from a caulk gun to hold down the sand (and kitty litter for added texture). I found that the sand color of the caulk worked nicely, though I did add a bit of variation. I think caulk would work much better than just PVA as your base adhesive, I've heard PVA as a base can also peel off in one piece down the road.

9 hours ago, VAYASAN said:

2- The Sand seems to have darkened in some areas...where the glue was thickets I think? That normal?

Probably due to moisture from the glue. Make sure it's fully dry.

9 hours ago, VAYASAN said:

3- In areas where it hasnt taken well or that you missed, do you just reapply your glue and then sand again(looks a bit messy when ive tried it)

You can definitely re-apply glue and sand to hit spots you've missed, if it doesn't look natural. The excess should brush off.

9 hours ago, VAYASAN said:

4- Would you then seal with a spray glue to protect.

This is the step I'm on. While I used caulk for the base adhesive, I have used two coats of watered down PVA from a Windex bottle to stick the sand down. The last thing I want is bits of sand falling out every time I unroll my mat and play, and a tiny bit kept coming up after the caulk dried (not enough to make bare spots, just enough to be annoying).

The first batch I made was a drop of Dawn dishwashing soap (to break up surface tension), and about 6 parts water to 1 part PVA. It had the consistency and color of skim milk. I did a heavy spray, making sure to hit every inch but did try to avoid pooling. After a couple hours I made a second spray of about 4:1 water to PVA and covered it again. After sitting overnight the sand does not seem to be coming up at all.

9 hours ago, VAYASAN said:

5- If I feel the sand is too dark when done, how can I lighten it? Add lighter sand scattered about? Redo the whole thing with lighter sand? Any kind of spray?

If the entire mat is just too dark for your liking, I would definitely recommend getting some cheap (Apple Barrel brand from US hobby stores) acrylic paint and covering your mat in a solid coat of it. Then you can make a few darker patches with drybrush effects. OR, keep your mat dark as it is now, and just dry brush with a lighter color. It's up to you, but covering your mat in a layer of acrylic will do a great job of keeping the sand down. But if the color just needs fine tuning, you can still accomplish this with watered down PVA spray.

I highly recommend Rustole texture spray. It's pretty cheap and very easy to apply. It has a perfect sand texture if you ask me.

19 minutes ago, JBar said:

I highly recommend Rustole texture spray. It's pretty cheap and very easy to apply. It has a perfect sand texture if you ask me.

which of their sprays did you use?

2 hours ago, VAYASAN said:

which of their sprays did you use?

Rustoleum https://imgur.com/gallery/gybuT

I can't find the color name

10 hours ago, JBar said:

Rustoleum https://imgur.com/gallery/gybuT

I can't find the color name

Thanks for the help.

Looked on Ebay but cant quite seem to find one that looks like that nice sand colour you have.

Ah, found some from the US, Caribbean Sand, that looks similar to what you have.

cant seem to find it in the UK or anyone that ships internationally either, no worries though, onwards with the real sand ;]

19 hours ago, Big Easy said:

I am almost done with my sand/desert mat ( pics for reference). I used caulk from a caulk gun to hold down the sand (and kitty litter for added texture). I found that the sand color of the caulk worked nicely, though I did add a bit of variation. I think caulk would work much better than just PVA as your base adhesive, I've heard PVA as a base can also peel off in one piece down the road.

Probably due to moisture from the glue. Make sure it's fully dry.

This might be a dumb question, but I tried searching the forums and missed any explanations: what material is your mat?

Im working on some Scarif terrain, but had planned for the board to be 2 3x3 wood boards. If there’s a good material that can be rolled up for transport that is much more preferable.

Thanks!

I used canvas drop cloth from walmart and about 5 or 6 tubes of caulk on top: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Trimaco-Heavy-Weight-Canvas-Drop-Cloth-9-x-12/17300520

Here it is painted

@JBar Loving those crashed TIEs

3 hours ago, JBar said:

I used canvas drop cloth from walmart and about 5 or 6 tubes of caulk on top: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Trimaco-Heavy-Weight-Canvas-Drop-Cloth-9-x-12/17300520

That’s really helpful; thanks! The terrain looks awesome. You don’t have any problems with anything coming off if you roll it up?

1 hour ago, ColMustang66 said:

That’s really helpful; thanks! The terrain looks awesome. You don’t have any problems with anything coming off if you roll it up?

I had it rolled up for a month and when I pulled it out there was no flaking whatsoever. So I'd say it worked very well. Just remember to clamp it down really tight on a table before adding caulk. There are lots of different types of caulk out there and I just found cheap stuff that said flexible on it.

It had a slight curl on the short edges but it flattened after a few minutes, especially with terrain on top.

9 hours ago, VAYASAN said:

Ah, found some from the US, Caribbean Sand, that looks similar to what you have.

cant seem to find it in the UK or anyone that ships internationally either, no worries though, onwards with the real sand ;]

It might be a stretch, but try Bunnings special orders if you have one close. Not sure what is offered in the uk, but if they use rustolem product as they do here in aus and rustolem ships the stuff into the country they should be able to source it for you.

On 13/02/2018 at 11:12 AM, VAYASAN said:

Ah, found some from the US, Caribbean Sand, that looks similar to what you have.

cant seem to find it in the UK or anyone that ships internationally either, no worries though, onwards with the real sand ;]

Wilko sell Rustoleum texture sprays in the UK, I used them on my buildings.

On 2/13/2018 at 8:32 AM, ColMustang66 said:

This might be a dumb question, but I tried searching the forums and missed any explanations: what material is your mat?

Im working on some Scarif terrain, but had planned for the board to be 2 3x3 wood boards. If there’s a good material that can be rolled up for transport that is much more preferable.

Thanks!

Others have already answered this, but yes I just used painter's dropcloth canvas. I looked for the 'seamless' variety to avoid any seams sometimes present in larger canvas cloths. And the canvas itself was huge (9' x 12'), easily enough to make 3 mats with and still have lots left over for test squares/measuring error etc. That entire canvas cost me $25 on Amazon.

Here's the mat rolled up to demonstrate flexibility: