Bartertown.com

Hello all,

I thought I would share with you my new gaming table.

I was tired of playing on the floor (bad back) and the girlfriend demanded use of the kitchen table if I planned to continue enjoying eating (and I did) so I decided to make a table.

Budget: 150$

Tools Required:


2 Paint Brushes
1 level
2 boxes of screws
1 finishing hand sander (not an absolute necessity but a real headache saver)
2 clamps
Electric Drill
3 inch wood screws x 36
2.5 inch wood screws x 10
1 can of stain
1 can of sealent
1 can of wood putty.


I started by determing what I wanted the dimensions of the table to be. Since most ply/press board is 8x4 and most games we play are 4x4 it seemed like an 8x4 table would be perfect (we have 4 friends who play pretty regularly so 2v2 battles are common).

The sides are (2) 2x6 cut to 8'3" long (Lowes will do cuts for free if you buy your wood there) and (2) 2x6 cut to 4' long. The internal supports are (3) 2x4 cut to 4' long. The legs are (4) 3' long 3x3 (easily the most expensive part of this project) the playing surface itself is a smooth surfaced particle board covered in green game table felt.

Wood total: 100$ even
Screws, stain, sealent, putty total: 47$

Construction pictures:

http://s85.beta.photobucket.com/user/do ... rary/table

Finished product:



My favorite part of it is the 2 inch or so lip around the edge, it's perfect for catching rouge dice. I was fairly pleased with myself since this was my first real attempt at anything handy other then basic maintenance. Of course there were problems (I didn't know wood came in different grades or that wood putty didn't stain in the same way wood did (even though the package claims it will)) but overall I was quite pleased with it.

Thoughts, opinions, suggestions for my next gaming project!?

Very nice. I'm going to start making movement trays 1st then a table.

Very well done, shoulda popped some holes in the corners. Played some pool on the side

Nice table. It's very much like the one I built years ago.

I'd make one suggestion that you might consider; leg supports.
You'll probably find that your 8x4 top is so heavy that the table has a tendency to want to bow, especially if someone tries to lean across it and puts their weight on it. If you use some 2x4's, 2x6's or even 1x6's to go from leg to leg, you'll have an amazingly strong table. Essentially, you'll need 4 boards in the same dimensions as the 2x6's you have at the top of the table.
As an alternative, you can use slightly shorter boards, put them on the inside, and have them double as supports for the shelf you put on top of them (good for holding terrain, books during the game, etc). In that case, I suggest a couple more support boards, like you probably did for the table top.

Where did you get the felt in that dimension?

Eric

That is a monster idea for a table underneath!

RE: Felt

I went to Joann's Fabrics (I think they're a chain) and they have felt 6 feet wide. I got 3 yards and used a loctite spray adhesive on 1 foot sections basically fitting the felt into place all the way to the edges, made sure the wrinkles were smoothed out and then did the next 1 foot section. After it was firmly attached I took a new boxcutter and carefully went around the edges and cut it off. Worked amazingly well (not to pat myself on the back) especially when you consider I'm about as handy as a screw hammer.

They also have it in many different colors. The original plan was to get a grey and a green and wrap the table with one color on each side so we could have different fields. But my math was a little too solid and once the particle board was in place there was no moving it.

Might still look into getting some light weight 7'11"x3'11" board and doing the alternating sides. But I'm already testing the GF's patience with this project.

The legs on the inside.. Would I need to go both width and length or just length?

You'll find the support beams to be almost a must-have. After someone leans across the table for about the third time, causing it to sag in the middle, toppling a bunch of well painted metal models, you'll slap yourself for not having done it.

Width AND length, to be safe. If you're budget conscious, length is the more important.
If you're doing a shelf, cut it to the dimensions of the interior of the legs (if you're putting your supports there), and it should just slide right into place. That is how I'd suggest doing it, if you're going with a shelf.
Oh, and don't be tempted to do more than one shelf. It's more cumbersome than it's worth, and you won't be able to access the innermost section of the lower shelf regularly, due to the short gap between it and the upper shelf.

I understand re: screwhammer. For someone who can drill a 1/64" hole into two tiny pieces of pewter and fit a brass rod snugly into those holes to hold the pieces together perfectly, I'm fascinatingly mechanically declined.

I'd looked at JoAnn in the past, but their pieces were only 3' wide, at the time. I wanted something 4x8.
How well did the felt go on? Can you even see the seams where your pieces butt up against each other?


Eric

It was 6 feet wide and then I got it 9 feet long so it was a single piece. The only trouble that I had with it was in one of the corners because I didn't change my blade and it got slightly ragged. But I managed to salvage it with next to no problems. The only real problem I had with it was that it was folded at the 3 feet mark for width so there is a crease in the felt. Now after about 30 minutes of running my organic chem book over it it more or less flattened out. But if you know what you're looking for you can still the outline of it. Maybe iron it? Not sure.

Finally, a use for an orgain chem book! I normally use mine to threaten people........

When I built mine, I did not support the legs. I did a solid 2x4 frame underneath, so that it would not bow at all. But additional support is for sure necessary, whichever way you choose.