Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Euro Terrain Project Part 2 - Table

Euro Terrain Project - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Well my boards and terrain pieces have been working well and there have been a few great comments from some readers. A big thanks to those guys.

While scouring the web this week I came across this inspirational site again:
http://lordashramshouseofwar.blogspot.com/

I especially love this photo:


I hope I can produce such inspirational stuff with my 6mm.

Anyhow, it got me to thinking about full table terrain with heights placed underneath a cover. I do have a large section of felt that has been spraypainted. But maybe it can be sprayed with glue and flocked. I would then need to add a few layers of glue on top but it would look okay I think. Then I could go back to my idea about the contours stuck to boards, with the grippy stuff lay over the top.

See this earlier post:
http://wardepot.blogspot.com/2008/08/battlecloth-terrain-prototype.html

Then I could cover as much of it up with fields and crops and hedges and fences and roads and tracks and farms and built up areas and such.

So for the next couple of weeks, I will focus on that and document the progress here.

1. THE PLAYING AREA

I decided to expand my normal playing area of 6 x 4 to 8 x 4. This is a big step for me as I have always promoted the use of 6mm and being able to play nice battles on small to average size tables. 8 x 4 is big for me. Also, my spare table will only allow a 6 x 4 cover without investing in a massive single piece of 8 x 4 or the 4th section of 2 x 4 falling off (I usually use multiple sections of 2 x 4 or squares of 2 x 2 to make up my tables).



To make my table 8 x 4 I came up with a plan. I got the idea from someone who made their own table and he showed the stages of production with included solid timber lengths that crossed each other and supported one another for strength as well as preventing it from wobbling.

In my wargames room I have a 6 x 3 table. I also have a small 4 x 2 painting table and it is about 5cm shorter. I decided to purchase a 4th section of 2 x 4 mdf so that now I have 4 sections (which together will make up 8 feet). Now all I needed was a way of putting down all 4 sections without having 1 of them fall off the end of the table.



At the hardware store I purchase some square lengths of timber. I think it is 20cm square and each length is 4 foot long. I then grabbed a couple of 20cm hinges that open to a flat position.



Next I attached the hinges to the ends of 2 of the square length ends so that they can fold onto each other for storage but open up to 1 x 8 foot length and be solid and strong enough to hold flat boards placed on top.



My plan is to place these on to span from 1 of the tables to the other and then place the playing boards on top. I may even add some timber to the ends of the playing boards to face down as a lip to cover these square length "spines".





Euro Terrain Project - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice idea. Here in the US home improvement stores sell sawhorse legs with metal clams at the joined end for attaching to crossbeams. Most of them are plumb and ready for use right away. You could attach those clamp jaws to your cross-members ahd have a truly portable table.

Keep up the inspiring work!