"AMERA Terrain: How Sturdy Are They Really???" Topic

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Thanks.

CC

It's vacuum-formed plastic, and pretty thick (.060-.080", 1.5-2mm for you metric types). The craters and islands my FLGS bought are at least as tough as the GW craters.

Wonderful!

Thanks.

CC

I am painting some up right now, it is quite tough stuff and really nice terrain.

Stuff it with tissue paper soaked in pva…you only need a thin layer and it makes it hard enough to stand on.

I've got six of their 28mm building ruins, plus the ruined castle and amphitheater from their fantasy line. They're really very nice; good thick plastic and decent detail. I was using spackle to fill in the backs of the buildings, but I'm tempted to try gluing them flat to sheets of poster board and then trimming down the board to see if that would be a workable option.

Jav: "I was using spackle to fill in the backs of the buildings"

Do you mean beneath, or are some of these vacuforms open in the back?

Thanks.

CC

All the Vacuum-formed islands and craters are open across the back. You kind of have a map of the island in reverse, and could at least use the crater pieces as molds for plaster craters (not a lot of detail, however).

I'd assume that the non-detailed side of the building pieces would also be a void-space.

Jav, you could probably use cardstock, no reason to go all the way to poster board, or filling the backs with spackle.

… or are some of these vacuforms open in the back?

they are vac-formed; so they all are open by definition/manufacturing process.

I was looking at the ruined buildings that a friend has. They are very sturdy but as Nadine says, due to the process of vac-forming will always have an open back/bottom.

I might pick up some ruins and pour some plaster into the back. This will fill the hole and also give a basic interior, due to most interiors being plastered.

Also very easy to put bullet holes/shell damage etc for added effect.

I had the forward command bunker (Z202) until one of my cats decided he'd sit on it. After that encounter, the plastic suffered splits and claw holes. The splits eventually spread making the piece unusable.

However, have got the craters and river bridge and they'll still going well without any additional strengthening.

I would say if you have a large(by this I mean some-thing closer to huge, them merely big) metal figure you could have a problem.

Hmmm… if the floors are glued on to the walls with a sufficiently strong glue, I don't think you'll have any problems with it.

The reason I'm considering cardstock or something similar is because I'm worried that the spackle (or plaster) will crack if I drop the piece. And it makes the building pretty heavy, too.

Break out the real plastic weld. The Amera stuff is basic, Vacuum-formed styrene, so plastic glue is your friend for strong buildings.

Just assemble the buildings before you paint them.

Is Amera still around? I can't seem to be able to access their website.

CC

Anyone know?

CC

No problems here.

Cheers
Mark

Hmm. Maybe it's the firewall here at work. Will try again tonight.

Thanks Mark!

Dan

Sprayed some filler foam I had lying around to beef up the ruins one.Then cut off the excess when it set (bout 16-24 hours) ,toughens it up for a bit of anti crush.They are pretty tough anyway.

This looks sooooo nice:

PDF link

Dan

I have not used their open backed buildings as I can do that sort of thing myself with foamcore but the single piece ruins are superb. I do base them, gluing them to a 6mm MDF base which makes them stronger and heavier. Plaster would I think make them very heavy and would be a pain so I do not bother with that. I did try filling some with expanding foam but that is expensive, difficult, horribly messy and pointless, it made no great improvement and did bulge the sides of some pieces so that experiment was not repeated.

A coat of PVA glue and some fine sand thrown at hem gives some nice and not too strong texture.

They are a little plain but if you accept them what for they are they are very good value for money and with a little bit of work they can be a very valuable and useful addition to your tabletop.

Thanks Dan

The pieces I used on that link are stuck to 3mm Styrene sheet with some sort of plastic welding glue (I can't rememeber what: probably EMA welding fluid). It does make it very rigid but I wouldn't fancy standing on it…

I also think – as I said in that lnk – that the buildings need some texture on them. I used (hideously expensive) roughcote (or whatever it's called), but any textured paint – or even glue and sad – would probably do the job.

John T

The original links looked ok but what John did made them look great!