MDF is great to work with, as you don't need to worry about the wood grain, and so can cut it in any direction as shape required. Try not to get too much of the dust into your face though when working with it, as it creates a particularly fine dust.

The two sheets of wood I bought were relatively large 2' x 4' boards, and getting a straight and consistent cut with a hand-saw would be very difficult. The solution to this was to clamp the two sheets together, and cut through both at the same time with a circular saw. All four halves were then clamped together in a big sandwich, and the slightly irregular edges cut back. This ensured that the four 2' x 2' halves were all the same size. One of the squares was then set aside, and the remaining three squares cut in half to create the six smaller boards.

Methods of Assembly

The next challenge was to come up with a way of stopping the sections from separating during play. The first option was just to leave them as they are - after all, once they are complete they will be fairly heavy. That just didn't seem quite interesting enough however...

The second option would be a set of pegs and holes, but I thought they would just end up being snapped appart in transport and storage, and also the accurate alignment required would probably not be easily achievable in my workshop - which happens to be my lounge.

That left only one clear winner. Magnetisation. Magnets are never the wrong choice.

The thing to be careful about was to make sure that the pattern of magnets was such that the various boards can be assembled in different configurations. This meant alternating the orientation of the magnets so that oposite magnets always presented oposite poles.

Not Scratching the Table

Felt. It may sound daft, but this is the stuff that turned the project from a bunch of pieces of MDF into a gaming table. Cyl scoured the mighty Internets and located an online craft store that sold rolls of sticky-backed felt. Two rolls coming in at a hefty £24 (plus delivery) was enough to provide backing to all our boards and instantly meant we could move things round on the table surface without fear of scratching.

Deliniating the Areas

Each board has a 3mm bead running around the edge and we've opted to extend this so that it runs around the edge of the road. This provides us with a more satisfactory hard edge to complement the road than trying to gauge it by eye when applying the texturing.