A Little Place at Home, Building a Gaming Table - Part 2.

 

So the next part of the table build has.now taken place, and some serious progress has been made.

I began with the 4' sides, these had been built the previous weekend, but I took the time to sand then down neatly:

I also tried to eliminate any sharp edges/corners in order to make this more livable with:

Next it was back inside and the top finishing layer of boards was started to be tackled.

The first 3' section, which has the legs attached to it was used as a test piece.

A piece of 144mm sanded and cut timber was used with an opposing 45 degree angle cut at each end, making a very long trapezoid shape.

And using the offcuts I checked how it would look on the corner eventually:

Evostik heavy duty wood glue and some dowels places into drilled holes was the next step before the top plank was added finishing off this section:

As well as the dowels, I wanted a bit extra support and pulling into shape, so decided to use screws at the corners into each leg, and place a screw through the top and down into each strengthening piece of the shelves.

This gave an opportunity to use the countersink drill bits and the screw covers I'd picked up:

Testing on a scrap piece of wood was definitely a good idea, as the first test just glided through the wood and definitely sunk the cover too far!

With a few practice runs on offcuts, I tackled the main board build and after a little trial and error managed to get a decently formed countersunk hole for the screw:

The chromed cover screws onto the top of the screw with it's own threads underneath the head. They're about 1-2mm proud of the surface as I can live with that, but also it allows access to unscrew them for disassembly for moving the table to my house (we're building it at a friend's):

After both 3' ends were complete, we moved into his living room and attached one of the 4' sides.

I also took the opportunity to check things were square and true by putting a set square into each corner and pulling the table in order to get the dill holes for the legs in the correct position.

Then I dropped in the main gameboard to check the fit:

Things were exciting at this point as the build was really coming together and all the measurements and cuts fitted up neatly with each other.

A common question about the size of the board led to the following photo, with an Imperial Knight, a mk.3 Space Marines and a GW building all being shown. This gives some indication of the gaming surface available, more then I actually thought at the start to be honest:

With the table lifted clear again, I got the other 4' side on the basic frame, everything was screwed and checked for levelness:

During this test rhe shelving units on the side had already proved themselves a brilliant feature, holding drinks and various tools around the table:

And the game board was dropped back on to check that it fit, and I discovered that it needs about 2mm trimming off one of the 3' edges to fit comfortably:

And to demonstrate the sound difference, I rolled some dice on the plain wooden sides and ontop of the foam covers board:

As time was marching on, and dinner was almost ready (proper Sunday roast chicken), I tried to tackle ONE of the 4' sides and discovered that the board had warped to buggery and back leaving me with this huge problem...:

Deciding that it could not be saved I ripped it up and make a little note about that piece of wood:

And then work had to stop, dinner was ready and it was getting a bit late for power tools.

There probably won't be an update on this for a few weeks now, as real life with the kid going back to school and work for me are going to make it hard to get back over to his to continue building.

The plan for the next stage is already in place though:

The felt needs glueing down first and will be wrapped around each edge nearly tucking away, meanwhile a supporting frame is being assembled to fit underneath it and hopefully I can also trap the very loose edge of the felt underneath it to prevent any tearing or fraying of the edge.

Onwards and Upwards, things have gotten exciting seeing the build start to come together and look like a table was really rewarding.

Until next time, have nice day...

(Edit: don't post whilst tired and with autocorrect turned on...so many edits this morning).