Basing an Afghan Village Part IV, Let the Sanding Begin! UPDATED

     Having cut the foam to shape I touched base with Kevin, we agreed that the hills were a tad overpowering and I swapped one of them down to thinner section white board, it was still taller than the rest of the terrain but no longer challenged the "Big Man's" house for strategic importance (or altitude!).  After double and triple checking the spacing and alignment (I actually checked the size of a Hummer three times just to be sure I had some critical dimensions right) I glued the foam down onto the plywood base.

my usual go-to glue, Titebond, was more than enough to attach the foam, 

I avoided the hot-glue gun because I wanted some adjustment time before the glue set

 (and, frankly, I burn myself nearly every time I fire up Satan's minion)

 

to my great dismay my loyal sheet of 60grit no longer had enough grit left to do the job, 

Mr. 60 Grit is dead, Long Live the new Mr. 60 Grit!

 

the razor-sharp new sandpaper made short work of rounding off the edges and giving the entire thing a more "worn" and natural look, in the process I re-learned why I so very rarely use white board, 

the static-charge particles go everywhere and make an absolutely horrendous mess, 

I spent more time cleaning up the workshop than the sanding took!

 

filling and hardening the surface is a two-stage process for me, I use normal wallboard filler for most of the filling work, get the  vinyl or latex based stuff as it is slightly flexible and endures handling better, I think it shrinks less but have never actually tested that theory scientifically

 

for top-coating large areas of foam, and particularly for the frail white board, I use an ancient standby from my construction worker days, Durham's Water Putty, it sets like concrete and is nearly as hard, mix it in small quantities as it sets hard fairly quickly

 

the vinyl spackle filled the gaps between the pieces of foam and smoothed out the joins between layers, I applied it with a 3" patching knife and smoothed over small spaces with a 1" paintbrush dampened with water, next we wait for this to dry (i.e. we go to dinner!)

 

after an extra hour spent sipping a glass of Tullamore Dew and reading my latest Osprey Man At Arms book the putty had dried on the surface so I could test-fit the buildings once more 

tomorrow I add the first layer of Durham's

this morning I laid on the preliminary coating of Durham's, 
this helped take off more of the sharp edges and also adds a sturdy
 layer over the tender whiteboard, 
a second layer will go on tomorrow and then I can begin surface detailing