Tables,
Cabinets, Tabletops, and other Gaming Furniture
�Welcome to my wood working area. This is where you will be able to see
my
abilities with woodworking and table, and tabletop making. (Read � Abilities = Distinct lack of abilities!).
I have attempted in the past to build and design my own concepts for tables and tabletops,
and it is these attempts that I will show off here.
Without further waffling on let�s get started, shall we�
The items I have constructed so far are�
Table Cabinet � Nicknamed a Tablinet
The pics of the table below are only some of the total pics taken during it�s assembly. For all the pics of the table follow the link below to my complete pic listing for this particular build. http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q231/DarkFather69/Scenery/Vietnam Rice Paddy Table/
My first attempt at making my own gaming table was only a small build. I had been playing, quite feverishly I might add, Battlefield Vietnam and this as well as my deep interest in the Vietnam War helped me to decide to try and build a scaled down version of a Rice Paddy table for playing small (1000 points) Warhammer 40K games on. I had never before attempted any sort of scenery-table building before, but I knew enough to get me started. I wanted an uneven gaming surface, and wanted to be able to show landscape features such as Roads, Bodies of Water, Different levels of Hills, Cliffs, as well as differing levels of forested areas. So I started by drawing out a rough plan of the tabletop, a topographic view if you like, and went about amassing as much Styrofoam as I could lay my ands on. Electrical stores are great for this btw. Just ask first, and 99% of the stores will allow you to dive into their big recycling bins to fish out choice pieces of foam, some may even hand it over to you from their storage areas!
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Once the planning was done and the foam collected, I then was lucky enough to get a hold of a set of legs already attached to a 4� x 4� flat surface. I proceeded to glue the Styrofoam into place on the �table� with PVA glue, and used whatever I could lay my hands on from my garage to put weight on top of the foam while the glue dried. Once everything was securely held in place and dry, I then proceeded to slice my way through the foam and cut out the shapes and contours I was after. Using my rough �mud map� that I had scrawled out on the sheet of paper earlier. Once the slicing and cutting was done and I had my basic shapes and contours, I then went at the foam with differing grades of sandpaper and smoothed out the surfaces. I then applied watered down PVA glue to the entire table and covered everything in fine river sand.
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In order to protect the naked Styrofoam edges of the table, I used 3mm thick MDF board and surrounded the table in this. I traced each edge�s �shape� onto the MDF and cut each sheet of board to match the hills and slopes of the side it was to be attached to. I then screwed these sheets of board into place and using PVA glue I secured the boards to the foam edges of the scenery. In order to hold the edge boards in place so that the PVA could dry and bond everything together, I used lengths of rope to �bind� the table together. While this was drying, I used the photo above and Paintshopped (rather badly) the colours I wanted to use and where to give me an idea of what I was going to do with the table once the building part had been completed.
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With an idea now in mind for what I wanted to do with the different surfaces for the table, I got out the airbrush and a few pots of Games Workshop paints and proceeded to spray paint the sand different colours to give me a guide of where I was going to apply the different types of flock and where I was just going to leave painted (and drybrushed). Once I had these parts organised, I started to apply the flock to the different areas.
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With the flock applied and the other areas drybrushed it was time to populate my table with plants. I wanted to have a mixture of Deciduous foliage as well as some �rainforest� type plants. In order to do this with any degree of decency, I had to model up quite a lot of the foliage. For broad and large leaf plants, I simply used plastic fishtank plants from a discount store. The overall effect ended up being quite good, I think.
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The last thing I had to do was add water to the actual paddy�s. This was done with Games Workshop�s Water Effects product.
The pics of the table above are only some of the total pics taken during it�s assembly. For all the pics of the table follow the link below to my complete pic listing for this particular build. http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q231/DarkFather69/Scenery/Vietnam Rice Paddy Table/
The pics of the cabinet below are only some of the total pics taken during it�s assembly. For all the pics of the table follow the link below to my complete pic listing for this particular build. �http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q231/DarkFather69/Scenery/Table%20Cabinet/
This is my first attempt at making, completely from scratch, an 8� x 4� gaming table, with built-in 6-door, 2-shelf cabinet. Having no idea what this build was going to entail, I made up some very basic plans with measurements marked (plus other random info for myself), and then went out and purchased what I thought I would require for the construction. For the frame I used 2� x 4� pine beams and for the shelves, surface, bottom, and doors, I used 9mm thick MDF. The entire table is held together with PVA glue, and screws & nails.
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I (actually, I should say �we� as my wife helped me with the entire construction of this table, as she does with everything I do from painting minis, scenery building, all the way up to making my gaming tables with me) then begun construction. We first made the 2 side �panels� and then joined them together at the base with the crossbeams. Once this was done, we put the �floor� in place and glued & screwed it in. Then on went the end beams and the actual shelf. Gluing and Screwing everything into place only after we did a dry fit at each stage. Once the shelf was in place we glued and screwed the top supporting beams where they were required.
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Once that was all done and �cleaning up� cuts and sanding was performed, we then attached the top and ends to the frame. Then came the �fun part�. I wanted this cabinet to have 3 doors either side, and wanted the entire side panels to cover the framework, so we had to measure out the door holes would go and get those cut out, then attach the side panels as well. Then the doors had to be cut out and put into position. We used a basic 2-hinge set-up for each door to take the weight of the large MDF pieces. Once that was done, much wood-filler was applied (to hide my lack of building skills, and cover up screw heads, etc), and we then proceeded to sand down the entire cabinet.
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Luckily, I have a huge 2 � car length and 1 � car width sized garaged so we were able to leave the doors attached to the cabinet and get the interior painted with the doors still on. This was done so that we could leave the cabinet interior overnight to dry and the doors would help cut down on any dust that may or may not get on the wet paint. As it was, the paint ended up taking 3 coats and 3 days (overall) to dry. I decided to go with a semi-gloss black for the entire table, inside and out. This was partly done to help make the overall cabinet look �neat� and also, because the wife didn�t want something garishly coloured sitting in my gaming room :blush. It was around this time that my mind started wandering (as it often does) and I even contemplated making the table into a Space Marine Rhino at one stage ROFLMAO, but it would�ve ended up being to long overall to fit in my gaming room� sigh.
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Thanks to the interior we now knew what we were in for concerning the exterior paint work. So we removed the doors and begun painting the cabinet and doors separately. Final coat count for the exterior surfaces was 6 coats in total. Warning for those not in the know **MDF soaks up paint at a ridiculous rate and amount so be prepared to use nearly double the amount of paint that you had originally figured upon**. Also be prepared to sand each coat � to get a really nice final coat.
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With the exterior coats now all done, and the doors not re-attached, we started planning out how best to do the details I wanted added to the cabinet. Once again, the wife came up with the best way to do what I wanted done. So she, using painters tape, marked out around the top edge of the table all the places for the Red Dags that I wanted, and then marked out with painters tape all the Ork Glyphs on the doors. Once that was done, we painted over the taped off sections with red paint.
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With that done and the paint all dry, we took on the task of shifting this behemoth from my garage to my gaming room. Two friends, 2 furniture trolleys, and lots of missing flesh (from forearms and fingers/hands) later, we got the cabinet into position in the gaming room. To give the table some extra height, we made a basic box frame from pine beams and painted in black and placed that under the cabinet.
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The pics of the cabinet above are only some of the total pics taken during it�s assembly. For all the pics of the table follow the link below to my complete pic listing for this particular build. �http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q231/DarkFather69/Scenery/Table%20Cabinet/
The pic of the Tabletop below is only one of the pics taken during it�s assembly. For all the pics of the table follow the link below to my complete pic listing for this particular build. �http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q231/DarkFather69/Scenery/CoD%20Tabletops/
This tabletop covers a 4� x 4� area and the components used to make it can be found on my Scenery page. With these pieces it is possible to make a nearly unlimited amount of different setups. Some of my Ork vehicles are currently �modelling� to show of the scenery in the pic. ;)
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The pic of the Tabletop above is only one of the pics taken during it�s assembly. For all the pics of the table follow the link below to my complete pic listing for this particular build. �http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q231/DarkFather69/Scenery/CoD%20Tabletops/
This tabletop was made much the same way as the top of the Tablinet (above). Pine Beams were used for the frame and support bars, and 9mm MDF was used for the surface. It was painted with Desert Sand coloured exterior house paint (3 coats) and was ready to use. The cliff faces, sand dunes, and even the rock spires were carved from thick sheets of Styrofoam and coated in thinned wood filler putty, stippled on with a thick artists brush, then painted over with the same paint as the table surface. The hills etc were then drybrushed with Games Workshops Desert Yellow and Bleached Bone. The hills, etc, can be seen on my Scenery Page. The total table surface is 8� x 4� and was made to fit perfectly on top of the Tablinet (above).
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The tabletop was actually made as part of a competition entry which included a heavily converted Games Workshop Ork Trukk as well as a complete set of rules in order to use Games Workshops Ork range to re-enact part of the Mad Max movies. The competition entry link and details can be found on the main page under the Latest News heading.
This particular tabletop is my latest project and is currently under construction. Pictures will follow shortly.
