It is difficult to explain to colleagues at work what I did at the weekend. Not in terms of what I watched, by the fun I had watching it. "There was this man stippling a layer of caulk with a wet plastic bag. It was great!" That's some interesting experimentation. Thank you.
Really good comprehensive video with plenty of experimentation so that we don't have to discover what works and what doesn't ourselves. Good stuff, Mel.
The flexible cobblestone path is amazing. I'm building a gaming table and now have a ton of ideas for interchangeable mats, paths, and textures. Amazing job. So glad I found your channel
Just started catching a few of your videos, really useful and informative content! Looking forward to a full mat build as hadn't even considered it before! II got the 1000th like and subscribed :)
Watching this again to see if I can do a river using clear acryllic and paint underneath for my train layout.. Also like watching this stuff again because the little things you do are massive.. thank you
You could lay chicken wire on top and embed it in the caulk if you wanted a hex base. Have to make sure to clip and cover all wire ends or it could be a health hazard. Just layer more caulking over it and put a lots of weight on it while it cures. Not many hexers here I know but everything has it's place. Could make a cool fight arena in a sci-fi coliseum where you could have a whole different set of close combat rules/.
On this, I'm probably far too late, but if you are looking for cheap caulk go to a plastics firm that sells roofline products, you will have one locally "Eurocell,Celluform ,National Plastics, if you buy it by the box you can get it really cheap, the managers of each branch have a lot of leeway when it comes to pricing, NEVER buy it from B&Q, Wickes or places like that as they will have your eyes out , as an example a mate of mine bought some silicone for about £8 if he had told me ( I was a manager of a Plastics firm at the time) I could have sold him exactly the same tube for £1.10. hope this helps.
For terrain lab 2 on this stuff, it might be worth experimenting with the substrate. A lot of the issues with stiffness seem to be down to the base thickness of the material, but also how many layers you have to put on to hide the weave. Given how much rigidity the caulk itself seems to supply, I wonder if you might be able to get away with a much lighter fabric, like Muslin or Calico. They're usually available pretty cheap at fabric suppliers because they're used for pattern making. If the material is too thin, you might get issues with overstressing the caulk in the fold test, it might stretch too much when you apply the caulking, it might be far too lightweight. It's possible the finer weave might prevent good adhesion to the caulk itself. No way to know without trying though! Great video, can't wait for part deux ;)
As it goes, muslin is used in theatre, specifically sets and backdrops. It's very good at taking paint and would make a great modelling material. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslin#Theater_and_photography
This is werry useful! Not mat but for a solid terrain, i needed mud. So i mixed around 5par real mud with 4 part cheap acrylic, 1 part pva, some water and a bit of paint. I got nice thick dirt paste. Dried solid and sturdy. Looks natural.
Hey Mel, Thank you, I keep coming back to this video again and again. And now I have all the bits sitting ready to go and I'm wondering if you have any plans to do the next video you mentioned on building battle mats this way? I'd love to know where you got to with this technique :) Thanks again!
Cool :D you'r a mind reader I was looking and thinking that a possible PVA, paint and filler (and sand in my case) mix I was going to use in making Star Wars terrain/ buildings. I'm back to the drawing board...although probably the perfect idea coming up in the video as usual. Keep up the good work.
I was thinking of a drying frame rather than a flat table for the cloth as it would dry from both sides and not stick, rather than the plastic which could stop the drying.
If you used a circular template to do some stipples you might be able to create old craters type look...just a though. Other wise great stuff as always.
I know it is a few years old video but I wonder if you could do it on both sides of the canvas, making it into a double-sided mat with different textures and colours each. Thanks for the research.
Has anyone tried using premade stretch canvas on frames with caulking to make a mat? Thinking that a 100cm by 100cm might be suitable for a 3*3ft board perhaps?
Wondering how a test would go with clear caulk. I saw where someone used it to simulate the effect like resin does for rivers. Wondering how different techniques will work using that caulk.
What about mixing grout (like for tiling) in with the acrylic caulk? Off the bat my concern would be for the flexibility, but it might do wonders for a more spreadable texture. edit: Afterthought... you could use watery paint or maybe pva to help if the grout makes it too thick and starts cracking? You could also look into gesso. That stuff is designed to prepare canvas for painting so I bet it would be applicable here too to help with coverage. If you go online you can buy huge tubs of it super cheap. Also another gem from the art world... inks and dyes. Good way to get color into the caulk without effecting the consistency too much. Kind of like food coloring into icing.
Tried that before mate, it goes too brittle to be functional. Gesso is an option but it's an expensive one and it doesn't have the bulk off acrylic caulking
Slightly different way , I want to try , damping a dustsheet, then spray with mix of water , laxtex and emulsion paint through a fence spray gun . Similar way to making costumes.
I have a large felt mat that I have been wanting to treat this way for a while now - do you think that the felt would change the way the caulking goes on, or would it cure differently?
I'm not even sure what the end goal is with this stuff or what you use it for in terrain building but I don't really care I need to know how this caulk works.
I was wondering what people assume may happen, or if anyone has tried this, if you start with the acrylic caulk and do "water" over it. I want to make a naval map like this, just water for the most part, but I'm wondering how think that caulk should be to make sure the resin doesn't seep through.
Would you suggest, or have you tried clear caulking over a thin layer of painted caulk to get a water effect mat? I'd be interested to see the result, just haven't made it to the store yet.Any experience would be welcome.
Awesome, please pop over I'm giving away a Painted boxset of figures at the moment, hey I love your vids so informative things I never think of doing thanks so much
UltimateSIn dust sheets from a hardwear store. It was surgested to use painting canvas as it would have a tighter weave but I wouldn't know how much that would affect the cost. In the first video talking about this I think he said the dust sheet was £12.
There also seems to be this idea that we all play on tiny tables...The tables my lot play on are 12 x 6 or 15 x 4...these are in standard sized living rooms. One of our guys lives in a tiny sheltered housing bungalow, and even his living room fits a 12 x 5 table.. So maybe im asking why is no one making large mats ?? or as we would say normal sized mats.
Probably because England is the home of wargames mate, so standard sizes were determined by what was available here, it's just you guys over the pond supersize everything lol :-D
Mel, we are UK gamers.. We tried to buy these mats commercial from the USA but all the want to sell is piddlin 6x4 mats way to small. One of our lads wants to do a 15 x 4, just got to work through the drying time. We would need a minimum of 12x4...just for a basic game night.
+Chris, ah the tournaments, maybe in the past but these are a thing of the past in many areas, tournaments are not what they used to be. I don't see mat manufacturers selling to tournament organizers, most game tables at conventions in the uk are your standard green board, if your lucky, the same as it was when i first entered tournaments in the 1980's. so im assuming mat manufacturers are selling to joe public, who it appears only play on 6x4 or 4x4 or 3x2, very very tiny tables. I have not had the displeasure of playing on tiny table tops, and as i said previously i wondered why mat manufactures only made tiny mats, as i assume they are screen printed on rolls, the length of the mat could be endless.
Thank you. What would be the way to present my protocol with material and result pictures, but not in public view? In private message. And then you can handle the matter as you prefer.
It is difficult to explain to colleagues at work what I did at the weekend. Not in terms of what I watched, by the fun I had watching it. "There was this man stippling a layer of caulk with a wet plastic bag. It was great!"
That's some interesting experimentation. Thank you.
Have to agree completely, Terrain, painting and a few beers on a Saturday night and enjoying every minute
Muggles will never understand mate ;-D
Roger Smallman model
Really good comprehensive video with plenty of experimentation so that we don't have to discover what works and what doesn't ourselves. Good stuff, Mel.
Hope it helps you mate
It's time for Mel to get intimate with his caulk........ let's watch.
Did you like watching?
@@TheTerrainTutor Looks like it got pretty firm once it had thickened up a bit
The flexible cobblestone path is amazing. I'm building a gaming table and now have a ton of ideas for interchangeable mats, paths, and textures. Amazing job. So glad I found your channel
Hope it helps mate
Just started catching a few of your videos, really useful and informative content! Looking forward to a full mat build as hadn't even considered it before! II got the 1000th like and subscribed :)
Welcome aboard!
Watching this again to see if I can do a river using clear acryllic and paint underneath for my train layout..
Also like watching this stuff again because the little things you do are massive.. thank you
You could lay chicken wire on top and embed it in the caulk if you wanted a hex base. Have to make sure to clip and cover all wire ends or it could be a health hazard. Just layer more caulking over it and put a lots of weight on it while it cures. Not many hexers here I know but everything has it's place. Could make a cool fight arena in a sci-fi coliseum where you could have a whole different set of close combat rules/.
The finished pile of mats looks like the haul from a robbery at the Rothko Chapel.
On this, I'm probably far too late, but if you are looking for cheap caulk go to a plastics firm that sells roofline products, you will have one locally "Eurocell,Celluform ,National Plastics, if you buy it by the box you can get it really cheap, the managers of each branch have a lot of leeway when it comes to pricing, NEVER buy it from B&Q, Wickes or places like that as they will have your eyes out , as an example a mate of mine bought some silicone for about £8 if he had told me ( I was a manager of a Plastics firm at the time) I could have sold him exactly the same tube for £1.10. hope this helps.
Hello from Michigan, U.S.A. Thanks for the video, I really enjoyed it and learned a lot.
This is really useful. Thank you
Thanx for the time you spend so we can spend less. This is getting interesting!
Isn't it just!
Your just class mate, keep it up!
Outstanding video! Thanks so much!
Super informative. Thanks a bunch for doing this for us
It's what I'm here for mate
Great stuff! Thanks.
I texture mine with a paint roller. Works great.
I'll give it a go mate, thanks
For terrain lab 2 on this stuff, it might be worth experimenting with the substrate. A lot of the issues with stiffness seem to be down to the base thickness of the material, but also how many layers you have to put on to hide the weave. Given how much rigidity the caulk itself seems to supply, I wonder if you might be able to get away with a much lighter fabric, like Muslin or Calico. They're usually available pretty cheap at fabric suppliers because they're used for pattern making.
If the material is too thin, you might get issues with overstressing the caulk in the fold test, it might stretch too much when you apply the caulking, it might be far too lightweight. It's possible the finer weave might prevent good adhesion to the caulk itself. No way to know without trying though!
Great video, can't wait for part deux ;)
As it goes, muslin is used in theatre, specifically sets and backdrops. It's very good at taking paint and would make a great modelling material.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslin#Theater_and_photography
A visit to the fabric shop is in order!
Amazing Video man blown away
Cheers buddy
"At the end of the day, the more you do with it, the stiffer its going to get." - Mel 2017
:-D
Thank you .
Use the white throw in cheap acrylic colour and mix it in a tub prior to spreading, trust me
This is werry useful! Not mat but for a solid terrain, i needed mud. So i mixed around 5par real mud with 4 part cheap acrylic, 1 part pva, some water and a bit of paint. I got nice thick dirt paste. Dried solid and sturdy. Looks natural.
You did bake the mud first to kill everything off right? ..... Nurgle terrain ;-)
Nah. :D Im prety sure thigs die from beig cured whit pva and acrylic. Roots and posibble insects are now realistic detail.
From experience, nope on the microscopic side, watch for mold mate, soz
Hey Mel, Thank you, I keep coming back to this video again and again. And now I have all the bits sitting ready to go and I'm wondering if you have any plans to do the next video you mentioned on building battle mats this way? I'd love to know where you got to with this technique :) Thanks again!
Should be revisiting them soon
Cool :D you'r a mind reader I was looking and thinking that a possible PVA, paint and filler (and sand in my case) mix I was going to use in making Star Wars terrain/ buildings. I'm back to the drawing board...although probably the perfect idea coming up in the video as usual. Keep up the good work.
I was thinking of a drying frame rather than a flat table for the cloth as it would dry from both sides and not stick, rather than the plastic which could stop the drying.
Spreading it could be an issue, I'd go with flat surface mate
That's great, I'll definitely go for a custom mat for my personal table at home
Great video. I really like your approach to this. v. interesting re he £ shop caulk.
The Video Seies that psys for itself!!
If you used a circular template to do some stipples you might be able to create old craters type look...just a though. Other wise great stuff as always.
37:10 what about maybe mixing the grit and sand with the Caulk all together then applying it? Maybe it would cut out having to seal it with PVA?
Can you do a tutorial on making roads with the Green Stuff roller? Using the caulking and ending up with a flexible road looks like a brilliant idea.
Check the urban playlist mate
Loving the title 😂😂
I know it is a few years old video but I wonder if you could do it on both sides of the canvas, making it into a double-sided mat with different textures and colours each. Thanks for the research.
Has anyone tried using premade stretch canvas on frames with caulking to make a mat? Thinking that a 100cm by 100cm might be suitable for a 3*3ft board perhaps?
Great workshop, Little late, but maybe put down the caulk, throw your texture on wet caulk, then mist PVA/water mix on top.
This is an awesome video :)
I am wondering if one could sculpt stone blocks - I am thinking a dwarven Blood Bowl pitch :D
A press might work better
Wondering how a test would go with clear caulk. I saw where someone used it to simulate the effect like resin does for rivers. Wondering how different techniques will work using that caulk.
no doubt I'll end up playing with it at some point mate
Please post a link to the kilo of dry turfs. Thanks. Love the videos.
Probably this www.amazon.co.uk/Bulk-Herbs-Oregano-1-kg/dp/B006MVTXL8
What about mixing grout (like for tiling) in with the acrylic caulk? Off the bat my concern would be for the flexibility, but it might do wonders for a more spreadable texture. edit: Afterthought... you could use watery paint or maybe pva to help if the grout makes it too thick and starts cracking? You could also look into gesso. That stuff is designed to prepare canvas for painting so I bet it would be applicable here too to help with coverage. If you go online you can buy huge tubs of it super cheap. Also another gem from the art world... inks and dyes. Good way to get color into the caulk without effecting the consistency too much. Kind of like food coloring into icing.
Tried that before mate, it goes too brittle to be functional. Gesso is an option but it's an expensive one and it doesn't have the bulk off acrylic caulking
How did the cawking compare to greenstuff when you used the roller? Just wondering if it's a cheaper option for basing
Superb detail mate, equal to greenstuff but light and flexible, defo the way to go!
Hi Mel,
Does one need to use plastic-backed canvas sheeting or can regular plastic sheeting work as well?
I think that ironing first thin layer will help a bit. I have a home made tshirt that has no cracks after 10years.
That's interesting, I'll look into it
Use greaseproof paper and iron painted side. Works with vinyl and acrylic paints anyway,
Slightly different way , I want to try , damping a dustsheet, then spray with mix of water , laxtex and emulsion paint through a fence spray gun . Similar way to making costumes.
"she said.." LMAO.
Is there a followup video of this in the works?
Great vid, thanks.
Do you still have a link for the bag of dried herbs?
Search amazon for bulk dried herbs mate
Thanks Mel, I've found em :-)
Would the drag marks from the water filled back make decent wagon ruts? It was hard to tell.
Yes
I have a large felt mat that I have been wanting to treat this way for a while now - do you think that the felt would change the way the caulking goes on, or would it cure differently?
Might stretch on application mate
Mel, how many tubes of the cheaper white stuff should it take to do two coats on an 4’x6’ mat?
12, 2 per 2x2 mate
I'm not even sure what the end goal is with this stuff or what you use it for in terrain building but I don't really care I need to know how this caulk works.
I was wondering what people assume may happen, or if anyone has tried this, if you start with the acrylic caulk and do "water" over it. I want to make a naval map like this, just water for the most part, but I'm wondering how think that caulk should be to make sure the resin doesn't seep through.
I wouldn't mix caulking with resin mate
Would you suggest, or have you tried clear caulking over a thin layer of painted caulk to get a water effect mat? I'd be interested to see the result, just haven't made it to the store yet.Any experience would be welcome.
Very interesting I wonder if I could use this to make roads
Yes you can ;-D
Awesome, please pop over I'm giving away a Painted boxset of figures at the moment, hey I love your vids so informative things I never think of doing thanks so much
Hi Mel ! What's the material of your dust sheet ? Cotton, Polyethylene ? Thanks for help ;-)
Cotton with a plastic backing mate
@@TheTerrainTutor many thanks Mel !!!!
I've found a dust sheet Diall cotton + polyéthylène (PE), I will try to make a battlemat with this. Thanks !
What kind of fabric was that didn't really get it .
UltimateSIn dust sheets from a hardwear store.
It was surgested to use painting canvas as it would have a tighter weave but I wouldn't know how much that would affect the cost.
In the first video talking about this I think he said the dust sheet was £12.
Awesome mate thanks a lot .
There also seems to be this idea that we all play on tiny tables...The tables my lot play on are 12 x 6 or 15 x 4...these are in standard sized living rooms. One of our guys lives in a tiny sheltered housing bungalow, and even his living room fits a 12 x 5 table.. So maybe im asking why is no one making large mats ?? or as we would say normal sized mats.
Probably because England is the home of wargames mate, so standard sizes were determined by what was available here, it's just you guys over the pond supersize everything lol :-D
Mel, we are UK gamers.. We tried to buy these mats commercial from the USA but all the want to sell is piddlin 6x4 mats way to small. One of our lads wants to do a 15 x 4, just got to work through the drying time. We would need a minimum of 12x4...just for a basic game night.
Ah!
Artourious the mat size was chosen based on tournament standardization...you can't fit in 100-200 12x4 tables most reasonable venues
+Chris, ah the tournaments, maybe in the past but these are a thing of the past in many areas, tournaments are not what they used to be. I don't see mat manufacturers selling to tournament organizers, most game tables at conventions in the uk are your standard green board, if your lucky, the same as it was when i first entered tournaments in the 1980's. so im assuming mat manufacturers are selling to joe public, who it appears only play on 6x4 or 4x4 or 3x2, very very tiny tables. I have not had the displeasure of playing on tiny table tops, and as i said previously i wondered why mat manufactures only made tiny mats, as i assume they are screen printed on rolls, the length of the mat could be endless.
I have done this in the past and also sold some battle mats. I think I have good answers. Can I help?
Feel free to chip in with your thoughts mate
Thank you. What would be the way to present my protocol with material and result pictures, but not in public view? In private message. And then you can handle the matter as you prefer.
email me mate - theterraintutor@gmail.com
grit vs baking soda?
Not a far of baking soda tbh
Mel, good workshop, but the americans are so much more advanced on these caulk mats., we have a long way to catch up...
Excellent job MASTER.
Seal it with cheap hairspray.
well mats by mell and will be s sun day sun day sun day yes hare we have thing moster trucks and do in add will see more