Gaming Table

February 28, 2017

design 100% stolen from the geek chic rift (https://www.geekchichq.com/collections/custom-coffee-tables-for-gaming/products/rift-deposit - edit 5/24/19, geek chic no longer in business). 4' x 3' playing surface. undecided about adding rails, it's kind of huge for the living room already. will add a cover to the bottom level, and liner for the top layer. have some 1x2 strips to add to the top section to hold up future leaves, or a complete table top surface. going to stain a light color. meant to take a bunch of progress pictures, but that got kind of forgotten along the way. so far i'm just under $150, not bad compared to the $2850 starting price of the actual rift of similar size.

Sunday 5:45 pm: first coat of polyurethane done on the top. hoping it dries quickly so i can either sand and do a second, or run the LED strip lighting. it should be usable after 48 hours of the final coat of poly. need to build the storage cover for the bottom still, and need to get 36x48 liners for both the top and bottom sections. all told, up to around 9-10 hours of work and $200 for materials on it.

electric is now 100% done, added one more outlet, this one with a switch so i can toggle the LED strip. plenty of power for charging cell phones and laptops. the tabletop is big enough for at least two complete HeroQuest boards... also finished the (hopefully) final coat of polyurethane (if not, i paid too much for "triple thick" poly). once i'm happy with the surface, i'll buff it to a high gloss. next up, picking up some additional boards to do the cover leaves with.

getting close to the finish line, so not a whole lot done on it this weekend (lost most of my Saturday to work and mowing... and some Warcraft). need something to burn the surface with on the leaves, and need some finishing nails.

Edit 5/24/2019:

Previously, I cut some 1 x 8s to use as leaves and transferred some laser printed graphics to them using gel matte medium. I was mostly happy with how that turned out, but the wood wasn't straight enough for long term use. I'll probably trim those down and fasten them together into a wall mural.

Because I was unhappy with those, I've been using two blank boards for the table top for a while. Today I printed out some new graphics and transferred them with the same gel matte medium technique. The first leaf didn't come out so great, but the second one looks pretty good.

In addition to the graphics, I also added an old D&D logo on each leaf. It's no longer my game of choice, but of all the games I've ever played, it holds the most nostalgia value for me (with HeroQuest being either close or equal, but I did build the table with HeroQuest in mind, so that was already represented--side note, I have an awesome cloth game board I'll need to get a photo of).

Bonus, I also got myself a good tan today. Or sunburn, whatever.