For elevated foundations, I’ve used plywood or dimensional lumber with strips of styrene glued to them. Painting and weathering and they’re done. For lower ones, I’ve used 1/8" thick birch, available from Michaels. I paint them various shades of “concrete” coloring, depending on the type of business.
I was just looking for a discussion of these technics of using ‘foundation boards’, and thankfully arrived at this one.
I recently discovered a sign shop nearby me that had a lot of scrap ‘foam board’ that I had previously know as ‘gator board’.
Foamboard, Gatorboard
Just ran across this interesting posting by a gentleman who seems to know a lot about these products.
[QUOTE]
Gatorboard - Laminated Polystyrene & Luxcell - Gatorfoam® foam board is an extruded polystyrene foam board bonded between two layers of Luxcell wood-fiber veneer. It is very stiff, rigid and heavy duty, yet a versatile foam board which is perfect for many model railroad structural uses. It comes in thicknesses from 3/16 to 2 inches thick! Most modelers have never seen Gatorfoam. It is used in sign shops, and is only sold retail at a few art suppliers.
Ultraboard - Laminated Polystyrene & Styrene Face - UltraBoard is a premium sign material which has styrene facing instead of Luxcell, however, due to the flexible nature of styrene, it is not as rigid as gatorboard.
Foamcore - the common “Paper-faced Foam Board” you see everywhere. It consists of three layers – an inner layer of polystyrene foam clad with front and back outer facing of either a white claycoated paper or brown kraft paper. It is Vulnerable to moisture - Warps and very substandard inexpensive foam board compared to other boards. Craft people find ways to use it and like it, but doesn’t have permanency of other products. Ideal uses - temporary structures, mockups, templates etc [/QUOTE]