I started out using the barriers in the game box, but wanted something 3D. I then made up some of the cardstock barriers from Midaga over on Boardgamegeek. The straight ones were fine, but my paper crafting skills couldn't make the corner sections work to save my life.

After fiddling around I came up with the following design:

It has a 3 5/8" square base and is 3 1/8" tall.

The base and the center portion are made from 3/4" MDF. That looked pretty boring, so I dressed them up with some sheet styrene and H-Columns from Evergreen and some bolt heads from Grandt line. The pictures are the parts assembled and primed. Next I'll add some stencil letters and better weathering. I've got plans for "T" and "L" sections, but they'll have to wait for later.

The design isn't that exciting, but it's efficient. I should be able to rip all of the wooden parts on my table saw. The plastic parts go together pretty easily as well. I'm hoping that I can knock them out asembly line fashion in a month or two.

What do you guys think?

rwwingate said:

pretty sweet .

It looks like a good start to me.

Very nice.

I was looking through Home Depot the other day wondering if there were cheap tiles or precut wood which would work (after some painting and weathering). Didn't find anything yet.

I do like the paper because they can be stacked and are light, but you do have to make sure to use the thickest paper you can find.

It looks good. I usually make a master then cast my production pieces. Its faster and ensure consistency. Either way it boils down to what you want. Good luck.

mgentile7 said:

I considered that as I cast my own Hirstarts blocks and have made my own RTV molds and there are pros and cons:

Making an RTV mold and casting in dental plaster or Hydrocal would save construction time. Also, using a grey plaster mix you could save the step of painting. On the down side though, the molds would have to be big, even if you break down the parts into three or four pieces. Maybe $30 to $40 just for the silicone. There's also weight considerations. Plaster barriers would be almost half again heavier than the MDF. A full set of plaster barriers would weigh almost three pounds more than ones made out of mdf.

If I had the equipment, I'd prefer to vacuumform barriers. They would be sturdy, light and best of all they could be designed to stack with sloping sides. Unfortunately, the tiny vacuum rig I built a few years back couldn't come close to something this big.

Looking very good, but I fear the weight and space of 16? or more of these will be a bit of a burden. My problem would also be in getting all the cuts square so they but up well.

Major Mishap said:

The cuts were the easy part. I have a table saw that keeps everything square. It's fast too. Now that I've got the settings figured out I can probably cut the parts for all of the barriers in under half an hour. The chore will probably be sanding the pieces to get the tool marks out.

At 5.6 oz per barrier, that's about 7 lbs total for a set. I figure I can get them all into one office box without a problem. Considering I have four other boxes of terrain from other games, what's one more right? (Yes my wife thinks I have a problem too).

rwwingate said:

only 4 boxes of terrain ?

tisk tisk , you are falling behind sir , you need to catrch up