RE: [Epic] Geohex Terrain

From: <e.to.?Kagi.Sh_at_...>
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 98 12:17:16 -0400

Subject: RE: [Epic] Geohex Terrain
Sent: 7/21/98 8:07 AM
Received: 7/21/98 9:30 AM
From: Andy Skinner, askinner_at_...
Reply-To: space-marine_at_...
To: space-marine_at_...


>Thanks for the description. Any way to get pictures?

Working on that...hopefully in the next two weeks.


>I've got a big piece of blue insulation foam. But what do you mean about a
>fiberglass coating? What does this look like? I don't think I've seen
>this.

The big blue foam works fine too, you have to build up a frame to support
it, though, or at least the blue foam I've bought to date. Be careful
when mounting grass on the foam if it's too loose as it tends to warp the
foam in to a concave shape (I tried this once with mounting grass on a
complete 4x8 piece of foam...what I got was a green barrel in the end :)
 As for the other sheet, all I know is that it's insulation sheets, kind
of like styrofoam sandwiched between what I THINK is fiberglass (it
itches like crazy if I mess with it too long...until I seal it).

>How do you cut your boards into 4x2 rectangles? Is it hard to get the cut
>straight enough that pieces go together well?

I've never had problems getting the board cut. I use a breakaway knife
blade drawn flat against a straight edge. It works best if you
meticulously measure out each 2x4 (obviously the only cuts you'll make
will be at the 2' mark if you cut 2x4 :) Anyway, two people come in
handy, to help hold that straight edge very tight. Try your best to keep
it vertical to the ground....you could possibly make up some kind of tool
out of a piece of wood with the blade strapped to the side, forming an L
shape with the wood being the bottom of the L and the blade forming the
side. This is almost a sure guarantee of making a very straight cut.
You could also put a razor saw on a rip table and use it, but this is a
lot more work. As for the pieces going together well, I haven't had any
ungodly gaps betweeen my two boards, so I would say, they fit together
really nice. Again, take your time and it'll pay off when cutting.

>I was thinking of making a
>cutter that is a big flat piece of wood with a lip to slide the foam board
>along, and a heating wire perpendicular to the board at a distance from the
>lip equal to my desired board size. I tried it once with a blade instead of
>a heating wire, and it must have not been parallel to the lip, because the
>blade would slide to the side, and I didn't get straight edges.

This is an ideal way to cut the blue foam, since you'll get very nice
edges. It won't work with what I'm using, though, because of the shell
that surrounds the foam.

>Do you make the boards interchangeable, or do they always go together in the
>same pattern?


Yes, they do go together in different patterns. However, with 2x4
boards, you get far fewer possibilities than you would if you had 2x2
boards. I run Warzone demos all the time and these boards form the basis
of my demos. I permanently mounted some tree trunks to be able to "plug"
my trees into them on the boards (to make them transportable) and have
recently added summoning squares and other "embedded" features on the
boards. What is the mathmatical equation for figuring out how many
possiblities you have with 4 different boards? Isn't it 4x3x2x1? If so,
that would make 24 different combinations of boards, which sounds about
right. And, if you make even more boards, you'll be getting into the
hundreds...IF I"M RIGHT about the formula (it's been too long).

As I said, i'll try to post the photos. I'm looking into at least
RENTING a digital camera for GenCon (if you can even do this) so if I do,
I'll take some photos of the scenery beforehand and post them.
Doug

Doug
Received on Tue Jul 21 1998 - 16:17:16 UTC