A Little Place at Home, Building a Gaming Table - Part 4.

 

"When last we left our heroes"...

See now you know you're playing D&D because...erm...wrong thread...

"When last we left the table build"

That's better...

Last post, we'd gotten to the exciting part of putting the entire table together and making sure it all fitted somewhat neatly and wasn't loose or wobbly and would survive the feline attentions it would gather.

The next step was to stain the entire thing with Walnut Wood Stain so it matches with the rest of my furniture in the living room.

This was something of a non-negotiable from myself as it had to match, end of...

Staining in progress, the masses of cardboard at the bottom are to protect to wooden floor at my friends house where we were building the table:

Once we'd finished and moved it in pieces to my house, I began we the work of cat proofing the legs.

Being soft planed lumber and just the right size for a scratching post, I was worried that they would "have a go", and ruin the lower woodwork. A browse of Amazon procured a roll of "Sisal Cat Scratching Material" for less then a tenner and would protect the legs and give the cats something to work on instead (this was combined with a new scratching tree which is now screwed to the wall in the room as well).

There is meant to be a joke about Women wearing long socks here...but I couldn't find a good one!

Once we'd gotten the frames together, as an extra strengthening measure, we added these steel L brackets to the table.

This will pull the corners together and hold them (hopefully) regardless of how much jostling the table takes over time.

And here she is, built up and installed in my house. Not quite as dark as the bookcase behind, but certainly matching somewhat:

The magnetic handle in place as I lift the topper:

(I've no idea where the playing card came from).

And finally with the topper removed to prove it works!!!!!

We'd fed the cats recently before this photo was taken, hence the bowl underneath.

So, this project has been enjoyable, the pure unadulterated joy of just making something and seeing it come together has been extremely rewarding.

The fact that it's turned out better then expected by everyone is an added bonus. When I told Fraser about the gaming area being 3'*4' his response was:

"What can you play in that area?"

Quite a bit, but more importantly, I will make the hobby work for me!

I have a gaming table at home and (unless meeting up with friends) I won't have to drive nearly an hour to get a game in of anything now. I've already had a quick game of 40k on the table last night to celebrate my birthday (more to come on that).

I started these posts by talking about the professionally made table Fraser had bought and it now costing over £750.

In the interest of fairness, this table has cost me roughly £240 in total, that's adding in the extras like the Sisal and extra planks we needed after B&Q not knowing what "straight cut" means!

Granted not everybody out there has a good set of woodworking skills and knows what to look for, so I definitely saved the most money on labour costs, as we could measure (twice), cut (once) and build it ourselves.

But that's still a massive saving in cost.

There are some things which I would have liked to add, but would have been major headaches to either install or get working properly.

Example: A phone charger, either wired or wireless. Would have been useful for when people put their phones on the table surround.

LEDs, we did talk about it, but hiding the power cables from the cats would have been a painful experience, same as with the charger idea above, as the Furry Bio-titans will always find what they're not supposed to!

That aside, I'm happy with the table. A personal 40th Birthday present to myself, one which I will use regularly now.

I'll leave you with this photo:

Until next time, have nice day...

A Little Place at Home, Building a Gaming Table - Part 3.

 

With shift work there are often times when you can't find a decent block of spare time to carry on with a project that you've started...this was one of those.

If you recall, I started the table build, and had to leave it for a few weeks because of conflicting work commitments, but with a slew of days off I managed to crack on with on the table some more.

First job was to get the tin of wood filler opened up and fill some of those unsightly gaps and along the backs of the shelf sections.

This stuff was nasty, definitely an outdoor job, especially as it set the smoke alarms off when the tim was initially cracked!!!!

After about an hour of work, I had all four sides to this stage:

That's the sides all filled, once cured about thirty minutes after application, I got the sander on them and got them nice and smooth, especially important as these are the visible sides once the board is in use.

The next big job to tackle was the felt covering for the game board itself. I had bought a big two meter by one and a half meter sheet of dark grey felt in readiness, and spent a good hour ironing it to get the creases out from how it was packaged.

Once done, I layed it flat on the big table at my friend house where we've been building this, and we used spray fabric glue in a generous fashion on the game board soft foam tiles, the pressed it down firmly, slipping over and smoothing out the main surface.

We flipped it again to use the weight of the board to press it down and left for a late breakfast.

Upon returning, the glue had done it's job and the felt was secure, so we moved onto the next stage which would be adding battening to the underside for strength, marking it out with the woodworking mantra "measure twice, cut once".

And underway with the outside frame in place, at this point I took the time to go round with the knife (not cutting my hand open this time) and removed the excess felt. As we screwed the battens over the folded excess and used them to help secure the material.

"Belt and Braces fashion" never use just one, when two or more is stronger! The central and cross battens were added for extra strength and rigidity.

Flipping it over again to check and it was looking good.

A little tidying at the corners...

And she was ready to be test fitted into the frame... SUCCESS.

At this point I remarked how nice it was being at the stage where you start to see real progress and the end in sight.

He was that confident in the woodwork strength, that we threw a couple of eye-wateringly expensive Forge World models and a piece of terrain down...

Removing the games surface, attention was turned to the topper, a battery was glued and nailed twelve millimetres below the surround surface. This was to act as the base for the topper when it was on the table.

And the topped itself got some strength battens added, these are only crossbeams because the main frame is the one attached to the table which it rests on. The battery's on this piece are placed against the frame and the weight is cantilevered out into the frame for strength!

And flipped out we get "dining table mode" as I'm calling it. This is what the table will love as most of the time when I'm not gaming on it, so we've got to be able to use it everyday.

And then work had to stop, but we're in the homestretch and she's nearly finished!

The next steps are to stain the entire piece to match the dark wood furniture at my house and to sort the magnetic lever which will lift the topper out of the table. 

It shouldn't be too long now until I have her at my house and I am throwing dice across the tabletop.

Soon soon...

Until next time, have nice day...

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).

A Little Place at Home, Building a Gaming Table - Part 1.

 

*Warning: actual blood and injury photo further down this post*

So, this whole project came about because of my friend Fraser buying a pre built gaming table from Model Railway Baseboards and it's what we've used to game on at his on the few occasions I've managed to make it over to Stockport this year.

Now when you convert the price from Euro to Pounds it works out at over £750! And that's not including shipping and customs fees... obviously far too much money to spend.

The other constraint is size, as a gaming table would have to live in my living room, my house not having a basement like Frasers does.

So a 6' by 4' table is out straight away as it would just take up far too much room and ideally I would like to keep the room useable for the rest of the family when the table isn't in use.

An inspirational scrolling of the Facebook Wargaming tables groups led to these photos, and plans began to form:

I shared these with Cardboard Fortress and remembered his reply of "They make it look so easy".

Well, with a bit of planning and some basic woodworking skills, I set out to build my own little place, determined to see it through before my birthday at the end of September.

I don't have a photo of the entire rough sketches plan based upon the photo's above, but once completed my table will have a gaming surface of 3' by 4', which is reasonable, and you can play some good games in that size.

Lion Rampant, Saga, MESBG, small AoS/40k or One Page Rules, etc.

I wanted to include a shelf around the outer edge, so I could put drinks and other supplies on there during games and not risk them being spilled onto the game surface.

So a rough design for the sides was drawn up, as well as experimenting with the height as I wanted to replace the old dinner table we had, so it has to be a comfortable height when sitting at it.

Another constraint I put on myself was that I wanted a "topper" which would cover the gaming part of the table when not in use.

As intend to add a layer of felt to the bottom, both to soften noise of dice rolling and to make a nicer look, I didn't want these fury little bastards tearing it up by clawing at it:

So I've got a second layer of the MDF I'm using for the gaming baseboard and will be adding a batten around to support this cover when I'm not gaming.

Forearmed with this plan, a trip was had to B&Q as that is my closest DIY shop, and nearly an hour and a half later the trolley was filled with supplies.

An hour and a half, not because I couldn't find what I was looking for, but because I was busy checking the timber I was buying to make sure I got good lengths.

One of the things about woodworking like this is that you don't want any obvious twisting pieces of timber. If possible you want it straight and true and ideally without many knots in the wood.

I also picked up a sheet of 8' by 4' by 12mm MDF for the baseboard and topper sections and had B&Q's cutting service quickly cut them to size for me. In my case two 3' by 4' boards and two 1' by 4' boards for my other hobby of model railway building (eventually).

A lesson was learned about handling boards in windy weather however as I slipped loading the car and looked like this when I got home:

Emo music intensifies!

The other parts picked up from B&Q were aesthetic in nature, being some filler for any gaps, a good stain so that it will match the rest of the furniture in the room and a nice handle for the topper: 

Lastly, the other bits I either already had on hand or ordered from Amazon, all used to strengthen joints or to make the build look nice at the end:

Cracking on with the build, I started with one of the 3' sides and forgot to add a photo, so here is a 4' side in progress, with the Mason Jar there as a test subject as that's what would be placed upon the shelf mostly:

The shelf unit started at Pint Pot size, but it was deemed through experimenting that the table would be too tall overall if I used them, so a compromise was made...plans can be adjusted on the fly after all.

Onto the legs, which have been cut from 70mm by 70mm cut and planed timber and are 34 inches high:

If I can just go on a tangent here, I absolutely hate how some things are measured in Imperial measurements and some are Metric here in the UK. I can buy timber by the door length, but millimeter widths.

Cupboard doors are measured in inches, but listed as millimeters when buying them...drives me insane.

Moving on as the first Saturday of the build marches on and I managed to get the first edge section built, securing the leg to the 3' shelf via these three screws. The brass rings will have a burnished steel effect cap on them which will hide the screw heads, there will be another three from the right hand plane of this photo, as well as a pair of top boards to go on further securing the thing and making it look nice:

Next, with it being late on and my son being in bed, I turned to the baseboard itself.

As well as the felt I'm going to add, I also had these soft play squares left over from when my son was very small, so figured I'd make use of them and spray glued them down to the playing area, this should create a nice surface upon which to add a future gaming mate and terrain:

And just as I was thinking "everything is going swimmingly" I slipped with the knife I was using to trim the foam and went into my finger on my left hand...FUCK!

I went deep into my finger, as it took about fifteen minutes to stop the bleeding before I could apply some antiseptic cream and a plaster/bandage to my finger.

I didn't seem to get anything major as I still have full feeling and movement in it, but it was concerning for a few moments, a trip to A&E was not on my plans!

Annoyingly, being back at work after I did this was the actual killer, as the wound is in just the right place where I couldn't grip anything properly for a couple of days.

Things like securing pins/straps on loads, wagon handbrakes, carrying a taillamp to the rear of the train, all stung like hell.

Cardboard Fortress asked if the build was on hold when I told him about my "Slip of the Knife".

"No, we ride for glory" I replied, meaning to carry on.

At the end of the day, I had these built and waiting for the next steps:

I've gotten all of the side panels, legs and the baseboard done, including the soft play foam glued down, which I didn't think was bad overall.

Work on the table did have to stop there for a few days however, as actual work groundstaffing trains in and out of the railyard where I work.

One thing I am hoping is that by being able to game at home, rather then having to drive nearly 2 hours to get a game (don't worry Fraser, I'll still head over and have a game at yours!), i will have the motivation to get some painting projects finished and more gaming done.

Who knows I may convince the Mrs to play!

Next up are the bottom frame which the baseboard will sit on.

I am not screwing this down as for one or will tear up the felt and for two, I want this table to be fully portable, in that I can take it to pieces in order to transport it, just incase we ever move (never say never).

So I'll do an update on the build in a few days, so...

Until next time, have nice day...