"canvas terrain cloth" Topic

I've seen a table made from painters canvas which was flocked well after it was covered in caulk adhesive and glue. I intend to place foam hills under the canvas and therefore need some stretching capacity. Does anyone know if I should buy cotton or linen canvas and how heavy. I imagine if I buy too heavy it will not flex as easy but it will stand up to paint/caulk/glue easier.

Unbleached muslin is fairly cheap, get a couple of yards and experiment

Don't bother with canvas. My friend made a 8x6 cloth using the black weed suppressing cloth you get from garden centers.The caulking and flock have proved to be very hard wearing.
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Me too. Thanks

I am guessing the mat in the photos is what he was talking about.

Hi Guys
The decorators caulk was mixed with a little water and acrylic paint to make a paste.Modelling sand was added to give texture. The whole lot was spread thinly across the cloth. Flocking was added while still wet but bald patches were covered later with pva glue. The GdeB game shows the cloth the other pics on the blog show our old system of Games Workshop grass mats.

Great looking mat Mike. Thanks!
The game and AAR where both very good as well.

That black weed cloth doesn't appear to have hills under it, as the OP stipulated. Will it conform to hill shapes placed underneath?

I used to use felt for terrain cloth, but found it too stiff to conform to hills, so I ended up replacing it with fleece. It's stretchy, cheap enough (esp. on sale), and comes in nice natural colors. I use a 4-layer approach: a felt covering over the table surface; styrofoam hills on top of the felt; fleece draped over the hills; terrain pieces (road, rivers, fields, trees, buildings, fences, etc. ad nauseum) over that. All three of these materials adhere somewhat to each other, so the felt helps keep the hills from sliding around and the fleece adheres enough to the felt and foam to conform to them. The stretchiness of the fleece allows it to conform to the hill shapes underneath it, and it adheres just enough to the foam of the hills to stick to them once pressed into place.

I haven't tried flocking the fleece. I might get around to that yet.

- Ix

Thanks, your cloth looks nice, it's a good idea and probably better than whitish colored canvas.

I just purchased the Home Depot drop cloth 6x9 size (8oz weight I think, not the heavy duty version). I then washed twice in washing machine with Woollite and dried in dryer normal setting. This "softened" the material a bit. Hung on wire line out in backyard for several days and nights for breeze movement. Then applied a shading of spray paint (browns) of various HD selection while hanging on the wire. Let dry over night. Laid flat on ground, I applied a light spray of PVC glue watered down. Tossed on various fine flocking material and light fine grit ballast of choice from Woodlands Scenics. I use the flock and grit material to hold in place my felt material… roads, stream, river etc and soften the paint edging effect (blending). The fleece material rivers really grab hold. Apply four large Acco Bider clips to pull tight on table at the corners for scenario setup.

Used for my "dry terrain" scenarios like in Italy, Spain or the Battle of the Pyramids 1798 game.

Example: Pyramids 1798

Alcolea 1808 Spain:

Many other photos recently posted on the blog for Alcolea 1808, Battle of the Pyramids 1798, and Valmontone FOW 20mm in 1944 Italy.

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M aka WR

Yes the cloth conforms to hill shapes placed under the terrain.I think the third pic down shows a hill.Sorry the scenario was a flat plain-we haven't had any problems with depicting undulations of any type.
The sci fi page shows the same process but with more grit to produce a desert cloth.