Building Your Own Gaming Table?

[BaldHero]

There are some cool gaming tables here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/gamingspaces

from Treasure Tables. Mine has it's pictures under dcampbez.... it's the result of several discards designs, the first of which was a 4x8 board screwed to the top of an old pool table, topped with whiteboard taped on.... the pool table legs make up the legs of the DMs area.

Dave

I just found the coolest new word to add to my vocabulary, at the site listed above...

Dorktuary.

i have had a dorktuary for years, and never even knew what to call it.

Re: game tables, i simply had to make do with a dining room table i paid a hundred bucks for from the local junk shop. My friends and i have grown fond of it, to the point that now that i have a permanent space, and can build what i want to suit our needs, our sentimentality is sort of holding us back.

L.

 

[Lanefan]

What are the qualities you feel would be good for a gaming table?

Do you have any budget-minded suggestions for this little project?

I've heard of doing a double-tiered version, with a smaller table to set on top of the main table. The smaller table is 8-12 inches abve the main table, and is roughly the size of a gaming mat, so there's room under it for books and sodas, that kind of thing, and nothing blocks the view of the maps and minis. Does anyone have experience with something like this that they'd like to share?

You're already most of the way there with your thinking...2-tiered is the only way to go unless your table is *huge*.

What we use is a chalkboard (can get one 3'x4' at any teachers' supply store or at one of the more useful hardware stores) marked off in 2" = 10' squares (you can use pretty much anything to do this, even an ordinary pen). You'll also need 5 wood blocks - 10" lengths of 4x4 will do fine - to put the board on; one for each corner and one for the center. Get some chalk and a chalkbrush and you're set...total cost should be well under $100.

Oh, and don't be tempted to nail the chalkboard to the blocks - leave them separate, unless you're looking for something that stays permanently in place.

The advantage with this is it's easy to take down after each session so you can use the table for other things the rest of the time.

Lanefan

 

[Darkwolf71]

Being a player at The Ultimate Gaming Table I absolutly love it. Sure, I'm a bit biased. Oh well.

Before building it though you definatly want to be sure you have room! The owner of the UGT lives on the other side of Houston from me, so it's a 40 minute one-way commute every weekend to play. Because I wanted to do some things of my own, on my side of town, I built my very own 'bare bones' version. Sans all the pullout drawers. I still barely have space for it in the game room. It does work, but with the drawers it would be too much. Which is too bad because having the space for book storage is nice when the battles GROW and they do, because, well we have the space for it.

 

[frankthedm]

Fast & Cheap - Pegboard or other 1" grid with clear vinyl on top of it.
Cheap - long sheet of fabric store marine vinyl, lay peg board over the vinyl, doting each hole with a permanent marker for a battle grid.
Fancy - Tabletop with 1" or 2" mosaic tile as a surface. Plexiglas sheet on top or clear vinyl tablecloth.

upholstery / Marine vinyl

Pegboard should be available at a hardware store.

 

[jmucchiello]

A design I always wanted to try but being all ring-fingers, I'm not allowed near power tools.

Take a transparent piece of Plexiglass (or Lexan whatever) about 30" x 36" and get is etched/screened with 1" grid. Attach 6" dowels as feet to the plastic. Create a similar plastic sheet 24" x 30". The plastic sheets are set next to each other on a 36" x 72" table (with the 30" widths lining up giving you a 30" x 60" raised area with a 3" and 6" border.

Books and stuff stay under the raised grid. Minis and weterase markup goes on top. When flying occurs, you can move the smaller board on top of the larger board to better visualize the height differences.

Not too fancy. But just getting the books off the map would be a godsend.

 

[Flynn]

There are a great many recommendations here. In researching what a stringer was, I came across the following site for building a shop table:
http://woodworking.about.com/od/shopequipmentsupplies/ss/portableTable.htm

Hmmm.... sounds like I've got a lot of great suggestions to work with so far, and I'm sure there are others that could be made.

Here's the current plan, at least at the moment:

Build a base for the table, following a similar pattern to the above link, or the Drunk Dwarves version. Then put together the lower table to hold books and act as a gaming surface while I put together the smaller mat tier to go on top. I can probably fit a 4x6 or even 4x8 in my current gaming space, but I'll double check before I finalize my plans.

So far, it seems like the best I can do, given my minor carpentry skills and the availability of detailed plans free online.

Thoughts or suggestions are always welcome.

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[Festivus]

Be sure to share pics when it's done. Good luck!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

How wrong is it that I want to buy a new HOUSE specifically so that I can build my gaming table/game room?

 

[Flynn]

I have plans to eventually convert the two-car garage into a game room if we don't move into a house with a reserved game room, so I feel your pain, Wulf.

When I start that project, there will definitely be another thread, but that's a few years down the road.

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[Stile De Mornay]

A friend of mine using the large wooden "Header" boards (2x12s or something like that) some 2x4s built a large wooden table with a couple sheets of plywood.

then using the large header boards went in the table about eight inches and sat them on the narrow end. Now, every player has a surface away from the center and the "battle" area is player eye level.

Using an extremely dry erase board for the battle area just set it inside the "sand box" looking area.

I can't provide pictures as I don't game with him anymore. But, the table was pretty cool.

Oh, we also attached a projector to his computer and mounted it above the table so he can shoot down maps from his computer and it saved time on drawing etc...

So his need for a battlemap was nil.