How to make hills for my ‘new’ gridded terrain board

Once I had realised that the Jenga-like blocks of wood that were included in ASDA’s ‘Jumbling Tower’ game could be used to make hills for my ‘new’ gridded terrain board, I set to work to make some.

First I glued three of the blocks together side-by-side.

Once the glue was dry, I then glued pieces of thin (1/32nd of an inch thick) basswood to the top of my blocks, and after leaving them for a day to ensure that the glue had properly ‘set’, I trimmed off the excess basswood.

I then repeated the process on the bottom of the blocks.

This was done to ensure that both the top and bottom of my hills would be flat.

Once the basswood on the bottom of the hills had been trimmed, I painted the edges with undiluted PVA glue to seal the edges. In the past I have found that this not only protects the wood but also serves as a ‘key’ for any paint that is applied.

Once the PVA had dried, I then painted the top and sides of the hills with a neutral shade of paint. In this case I used a water-based emulsion paint in a shade called ‘Pebble’. I applied two coats of paint to ensure that the coverage was both smooth and consistent.

The final stage was to apply the static grass flock to the hills. In turn, each top and side of the hills was given a coat of undiluted PVA and then it was dipped into a tub of static grass flock. Each hill was then put to one side whilst the PVA dried. Any loose flock was then removed by gently knocking each hill over the tub of static grass flock … et voila … when the tops and sides of all the hills were covered in static grass flock, the hills were completed!