"Water Mats Cut Into Rivers" Topic

Hello

I have done the perpetual back and forth on rivers. My table is of the modular, contained flock mess variety. Permanent rivers defeat the whole purpose, although they can be covered. I am not a fan of the cast flexible rivers. They seem like good products but personally the seams and ridges get to me, and the ones I find good are quite expensive to have a decent collection.

Then the idea ocurred to me to cut up a neoprene or other material water mat. Pros are I can cut 2-6 foot long strips. Heck it wouldn't necessarily need to be modular, I can cross the board and make a specific river. Then cover the edges with flock and dirt and voila.

There is one company that makes something like this, but it is in mousepad like chunks, and the details are cartoonishly 28mm. Fish in the water and all that. I need 1-3 inch wide strips.

Has anyone ever done this before? Only thing I question is if it is able to cut. Maybe I am just asking the ether for the go ahead and try it I suppose.

Thanks.

I don't understand. What is a water mat?

A neoprene mat cut into two six foot strips… how wide is the neoprene mat?

Dude you gotta give me a clue ;-D

A mat, like any other, but with an ocean print on it. You know, the ones for naval battles.

Have you seen the rolls of vinyl(?) river that Lemax make for Christmas village decorations? Maybe 18" wide, 4'(?) long? Unroll and trim the sides.

Go to your local fabric shop. They will have cotton print that looks kind of like waves and comes in a variety of colors. They will usually have 2 or 3 different blue colors.

It will look a little like classic school picture day backdrop. Easy to find and cheap. I use a lot of colors for terrain – bright green for jungle bases, gray for ruins/urban etc.

While I haven't cut up a mat like that, I have cut mousepads and Spenco shoe inserts, which are similar. True curves are difficult to cut with scissors; you kind of end up with multiple short, straight lines that form a curve. Maybe using a razor knife would work better.

Grelber

Thanks guys

Valmy – I have seen that and it isn't so bad. I used some of the brickwork as a kid. I might give that a try before this. The only downside is that stuff had a decent "memory" of how it was stored. One plus to the neoprene would be I could wad them all up in a box and come back out flat.

Mark – Thanks. I know all the traditional modular setups and tricks for going out (I got that reets from you) and I will play on an empty wood table and some books, but I just finished my place and want a more finished approach for my permanent table.

Grelber – Thanks. That is what my gut was telling me. I have handled mouse pads and crafty enough can almost tell by feeling it, isnt going to cut great. I wonder if laid out on hardboard or something, and a friend to help keep it tight a razor blade would work…

I know you all have seen the style of table I am talking about. It is where you put have a nice rim and then a flocked flat plane, put something down and then hide the edges with flock. Dry clay dirt for roads. Sweep it all up later.Similar to the old sand tables but with flock. But the issue is figuring out rivers. It is gaming equivelant of "first world problems" I know but that was an idea I had to be a little more realistic.

Ill pick up Valmys idea and then if that looks bad I will just shoot my shot and buy a mat and get the wife's good scissors out. Worst case "well looks like I play age of sail now"

Warlord do a sea mat for their maritime games. They are quite simple in design and in no way cartoonish. They might be what you need. Personally, after so many disasters with pouring material to make rivers I am considering starting again and incorporating strips of mats in my terrain tiles. Anyone else tried that?

I prefer modular decomposable table and made one inside element.

link

Yup rivers are a problem, they very unsportingly often don't even remotely conform to the straight and bend modularity of some river sets and don't get me started on hex based rivers, I use hex but hex based rivers do not map at all well to the real world. Rivers always have inconvenient lengths of relatively straight sections. The problem with strips of any significant thickness is you can't overlay them to get a particular length. I use a thin blue flexible plastic for the following reasons.

1- Because its thin you can make it conform tp hill and overlap sections to get infinitely variable lengths. With sort sections you can often approximate a curve by short sections each at an angle. If you round the ends it can be a passable approximation of larger curves.

2 – If all else fails and it sometimes does, a river near me we modelled had really tight bends, you can afford to cut the odd special piece for a particular game.

However be careful you need a mat with no "grain" a sea mat would likely have waves in one direction and it would not look great as you bend the river.

Sunken rivers to me are a none starter, like the rivers sets there flexibility to represent a different river, sometimes twice a week is just not possible.

In the end you need a compromise that suits you. Regrettably all options I have explored are sub-optimal for me but I keep hoping I will come up with a better one for me. Good luck whatever you choose.

I made rivers from neoprene gasket rubber. The downside is that smells really strongly for the first month! Easy to cut and very flexible if you buy 1.5 or 2mm thick sheets. I glued fine sand along the edges of the strips I cut and dry brushed it to match the main game mat. Painted the river and used gloss yacht varnish to give the reflective finish I wanted.