I have a creative, DIY itch.  I know dungeon tiles are pretty cheap right now, but I would really like to start making some of my own.  I have a few reasons (bonding with my scrapbooker girlfriend, one-shots with my second gaming group), but mostly I'd just like to get messy and have fun making my own dungeon tiles.  I feel like I have a decent library of images and idea of the materials I would need, but it would be silly not consult you guys on this subject first.  Specifically, I'm curious about:

1) Tile material, or what to mount the printed image on.  I do have a material and thickness in mind (medium or heavy chipboard), but I'd like to know what you have/would use and your success with it.  Almost every source recommended an acid-free spray adhesive to mount the printed image.  What I don't know is what to cut it with.

2) Your favorite source for free tile or battle-mat images.  I believe every game I plan to run in the near future will use 1-inch squares.  I have a good library to go off of for a weekend project, (and I can make just about anything I need using Dungeonographer) but I would like to hear your recommendations for developing a dungeon tile collection.  Particularly, I am looking for more tiles for outdoors, forests, and more natural-looking caverns.  I'm pretty good on classic dungeons.

3) Finish on your tiles.  I have found less agreement on the need and type of finish for DIY tiles.  What have you used and did you like the results?

4) I'm thinking I might want to make some doors at the same thickness as my tiles. At the risk of sounding ignorant, what do you call those plastic bases you slide cardboard bits into and can you just buy a set of them to specific widths anywhere?

5) I'd love to see your results, so post images.

Thanks,
wb

Hidely ho WB.

I haven't really had any experience with dungeon tiles but I'd still offer this site as an interesting source for maps and the like - which might or might not be useful, if only for ideas. I used to play the D&D Miniatures game of a Thursday evening back for awhile and someone pulled out the "Island of the Sirens" map which in particular is awesomely awesome - just recently found where it came from. That said, I have no idea how difficult it would be to execute any of these with dungeon tiles.
http://www.public.asu.edu/~rbeachle/RMEIndex.htm

Good luck with the "bonding" - and watch out for that sovereign glue!

Cheers,
BSJ.

BSJ,

Those are excellent maps.  I don't think all of them are candidates for tiles as they pretty much have to be set up in a particular order, but they're excellent set pieces.  It looks like some of them might work on a large scale though.  Consider the site saved, and thanks for sharing it with us.

I did a quick google search and found a couple of interesting links.

Lord Yabo basic steps are

Print out the titles on a color printer
Cut them out with scissors
Gluestick them to black foam core
Cut out the tile with a knife and steel ruler

The Newbie DM also has a tutorial involving chipboard.

http://newbiedm.com/2009/06/05/a-reader-written-tutorial-on-making-your-own-dungeon-tiles/

Hey, you can use google too? No fair!

His tiles weren't bad though, I'll certainly save them.

I see he chose foamcore.  I saw that recommended a couple of times, but I think chipboard is closer to what is traditionally used.  That's the one thing I really have to commit on before moving forward.

Thanks