this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023

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Do It Yourself

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Gaming table that my sibling and I designed and built (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Full build album: https://imgur.com/a/UOzzdc4

Back when the pandemic started, my sibling and I decided to take on a little woodworking project during lockdown: a table for tabletop gaming, featuring fold-out player stations and a TV in the middle for battle maps. After more than 3 years, we finally finished!

This was our first major woodworking project, and we made a ton of rookie mistakes. I was too impatient with the wood stain, and I got really inconsistent results, and despite our best efforts a lot of pieces didn't line up quite right. But overall the table is beautiful and it's built like a tank, so it should last through many campaigns.

Hopefully this project will be the first of many!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

wow, this is awesome! i’ve seen some other tables like this for ttrpgs before, and they just seem sooo complicated to build but also so awesome for gaming! does it have any other uses you’ve found than just roleplaying games?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks! I designed it to be versatile. The play surface should work well for other tabletop games, and if I throw a removable felt liner in there it would do great for card/dice games. Someone also suggested that I could add removable joystick modules to each of the player stations and do tabletop Pac-Man and other arcade-type games.

It's also built to work as a regular dining table: https://imgur.com/OkASfSW

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Insane skill for your first project

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Wow this looks great! Nice work 😊

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's really nicely done! I ran a group that used a cobbled-together setup similar to your cardboard mock-up on a dining room table, but haven't taken the plunge to put something together that's dedicated to game nights. Are you using static maps on the display or some kind of software to run the campaigns?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks! For now I'm just using static images, but at some point I'd like to try software that handles line of sight/fog of war, and maybe animations. I'd love to hear suggestions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

We use foundry on ours with great results.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dude, the stain definitely doesn't look as bad as you think it does! Is this pine/spruce? My softwood stain projects have turned out a lot splotchier, this looks great.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's oak (I can't remember if it's white or red, it's been so long since I bought it). I did manage to avoid splotches, but different pieces came out with vastly different shades because I didn't stain it all at once, and my technique and the stain both changed over time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Oh awesome, love the grain on that oak. Well, can't tell the stain difference from this pic, looks great!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This looks absolutely awesome. I hope you have lots of fun at that table.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now that I've proven my skills with a tiny box, the next logical step is to design and build the most complicated table I can imagine

This type of confidence is what gets me in over my head in all sorts of projects, and I'm here for it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Actually related to the post: are you doing anything specific for ventilation of that TV? I think they usually expect to be upright and draw air through via natural convection but having it flat under a table is probably going to prevent most natural passive cooling.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Hm, I didn't think of that. The tv is supported by a couple of beams but otherwise the bottom is completely open for airflow, but I have no idea if passive convection will work since I covered it with a solid piece of acrylic on top. Maybe I'll hack in some PC fans at some point.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That is so impressive! I bet its so fulfilling to use it and know you built the whole thing. I don't even want to think how much that cost, at least here the price of wood is insane!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

have you seen this?

https://www.tiltfive.com/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That looks great.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Love the CAD (cardboard aided design.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Cardboard aided design is a vastly underrated engineering tool :)

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