Making a paddock/arena base Part 1

I've had this idea of making a paddock/arena base to use for my photoshow photos and performance entries for quite a long time. A few months ago I finally got the last supplies and finally started to make it! :)

The things I used can be seen in the picture and listed below:

Cork pinboard 40cm x 60cm
Glue, I used a wood glue
Sand (I bought three bags) unfortunately I don't remember how much were in them
2 brushes (one for painting and one for the glue)
X-acto knife
White acrylic (or hobby) paint
Sticks to make a fence (the ones I used where one that where 1 cm x 1 cm x 100 cm and two that where 1 cm x 0,3 mm x 100 cm)
Something to measure with

Not pictured is sandpaper and cuttingboard (and I also had to get a bigger knife since I had no saw and the x-acto knife didn't quite cut it).

First of all I brought out a horse I had handy (which happened to be a big one, which was good so I could see that it would work for large models too), for me that was my unpainted Eberl Elsa. I just wanted to see that she would fit (since I've started to gather a nice little collection of large Eberl models *cough* Lohengrin *cough*). I decided that it would work.

¨

I then took my "gluebrush" and started brushing on glue on a square. I poured the sand over it but made sure I could still see the glue a little bit.

I then did another square of glue right next to the first. And sprinkled sand on top. I did that one more time and then I had covered half of the corkboard. The reason I brush the glue on in squares is so that it won't have time to dry out to much before I am done so I can sprinkle on the sand.

I followed the same steps for the other half of the corkboard and left it to dry with the sand still on top. When the glue was dry I put a big news paper under the short end of the board, tilted it and tapped of the excess sand. I realized that one layer wasn't giving me the coverage I wanted so I did another layer using the same technique on top of the first layer of sand.

In the picture below I've just finished the second layer and I'm waiting for it to dry so I can tap of the excess again. If I don't like the coverage I'll just have to make a third layer.

When everything was drying I started to measure the poles for the fence. I can't remember the measurements at the moment (and unfortunately I'm at uni so I can't look it up at the moment) but I cut 3 poles from the 1 cm x 1 cm x 100 cm stick in suitable length.

They were a little uneven in the ends as seen below since I snapped the last middle piece that I couldn't cut with my knife. It was an easy fix with some sandpaper.

That's all for now as I haven't come any further at the moment!