My Evolution of CHERRMs

One of my main objectives as a part of developing an effective and realistic board was to solve the issue of shaping roads in many different ways.

I started with square boards of 100 cm and then 130 cm and painted a winding road and a couple of crossroads: you can do it in a very realistic way but it remains always the same and gets boring after a while. Consequently I got involved in planning a series of modules which could fit together as well as possible. Here come CHERRMs: Cheap, Handmade, Easy to do, Realistic Road Modules.

Looking at hundreds pics on the web I developed the main concern of having the edge of modules as thin as possible in order to avoid steps which reveal something unnatural as in reality most roads are at the same level of the surrounding surface. That was the first worry; the second was to make sure the different modules got together very smoothly when assembled in order to give the idea on a continuous path with no interruption.

For these two reasons it seemed to me an obvious choice using a very thin pressed cardboard, i.e. with 1 mm of thickness or even less. It was very easy to cut and I had plenty of, for free. The snag was that after coloring it the cardboard became bowed, even if slightly (see pic 1-5).                                                                        

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I changed different kind of paint: distemper, enamel, spray paint, acrylic but the outcome was not always satisfactory so I used a thin plastic sheet like the one used for the booklets or paper presentations. The sheet remained rigid but I had to use a coat of primer first in order to get the paint sticking to it (see Pic 6-10)

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I realized as many as I needed (Pic 11). 

Pic 11

The outcome was ok-ish with the main hitch being some kind of rift at the points of connection and this was probably due to the very thin thickness.  Therefore I tried with the solution I saw used very often on the web and which I originally thought it was too intrusive vs the surrounding surface: a 3 mm PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic. This actually has a lot of advantages, such as easy to modify and carve, the paint sticks well, it does not bend, the connections are not very visible (Pic 12-16).

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I also tested a 1 mm PVC and it has the same advantages apart from some kind of attitude to bend a little bit at the end. The comparison is shown in Pic 17: the 1 mm PVC is on the left.

Pic 17

In order to have the same width at the connection points I always used a 7 cm  span amending it between the two ends so to create some natural irregularity. Anything from fallen trees to little bushes, stones and grass were added on the sides.