Building Wood Plank Bases
Ever wanted to have wood plank bases, kind of like what you think an old tavern’s floors would look like, the decks of a ship or just what you want for themed bases? Here’s a quick and dirty guide to making these, with just a few simple materials.
Materials to Create Bases
- Bases of choice (30mm Warmachine bases used for this guide)
- Balsa wood strips (no larger than 1/4”-3/8”)
- Super Glue
- Clippers
- X-acto Knife
- Zip Kicker, or some form of super glue accelerant
The process to create the initial base is very simple:
1. File the edge of your base to make sure it’s ready for painting when you are finished, rather than waiting till the end to do it.
2. Taking your clippers, snip random lengths of balsa out, taking care not to crush the ends too much (clip with flat edges against the part of the wood you want to use, as this will ensure you get a good cut without crushing the ends of each piece)
3. After getting a sufficient amount of pieces, take them and dry fit them to your base, seeing what you like on the base, and how realistic it looks to you. Also make sure to fill in the slot if your base has one, with a small piece of wood trimmed down. This limits the worries of the table showing through the base gaps.
4. Once you’re satisfied with the pieces, or if you just choose to wing it instead, start by gluing down a piece. This can be personal preference at this point, as to whether you want to work edge to edge, or middle out.
5. Repeat process of placing random pieces on the base until you only have triangle shaped areas left, getting as much of the base filled as possible. You can cut small pieces to fill in the gaps, or leave the gaps there, whatever your preference is.
Finished Product: