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Hello,

Want to start off by saying that I am in no way talented at modelling/painting, and am amateurish at best.
Having said that, I was pretty impressed with how my board turned out and thought I would give a little tutorial on how I did it, and hopefully give some ideas to anyone thinking about making something like what I have done.

My plan was to have a board that would take up the least amount of space possible as I did not want it always out on display.
Unfortunately I did not take any photos of the original construction (it was only when I started texturing the surface that it occurred to me I might want to post something like this).

Here is a photo of the completed board - I used 3 pieces of MDF; 1800x600 for the central board and then two 1800x300 for the flaps either side. I used 3 large hinges on each flap which you can see further down. The table legs I managed to get cheap second hand and just screwed them to the main board.


Here is an image of the other side, I learnt the hard way of having the flaps fly open and crush my finger to then add a lock to the board!


Once the construction was complete I originally wanted to make a sort of cracked earth texture, went out a bought a heat gun and tried a few different techniques but could not get a good finish.
I decided to use some building filler and just slapped it on. I made sure to put heaps around the hinges to try and hide them as much as possible. I put some land raider tire tracks pressed into the filler along with some other objects to make it look well used!





Next step was to paint the board, I did 3 layers; first a dark ash brown then some areas I went over with a more red brown. I then highlighted areas with a mixture of the dark ash brown and white.


Here is with the highlighting


The final step was to cover the board in static grass, I had to wait over a month to get enough of it as this time of year all the Architectural students run New Zealand dry for their projects.
I used a kitchen sieve to evenly disperse the static grass and used aerosol spray glue to keep it down. PVA would just turn it into a muck, so I definitely recommend spray glue, I used a full can and did 3 full layers to seal the grass and protect the paint job.




and here is a pic with some of the scenery I have built over the past 8 years...



Hope this helps someone, its super handy being able to just bring it out when I have some friends around for a game, then pack it up and put it away again.

Wow, that looks really good for what it is.
I'd consider adding a few offset pieces of metal junk/scrap/debris around the hinges just to make them look a little more like they're supposed to be there, also one or two extra piles elsewhere on the board would help break up the uniform layout (What hinges? They look like proton fuel rods to me. ).
I'd be worried about the strength of the table and stress on the proton fuel rods (hinges) so perhaps just add some more brackets to the underside in the same way that you attached the legs (looks like conduit saddles to me) and keep 2 to 4 broomhandles to slide through them when the table is in operation?
Great job.

I'd probably put brackets on the folding parts of the table too.

Nice. Definitely agree with the comments on the bracing. In hindsight, it would have been nice to sand down some of the texturing to make it look a little more natural, but I think it looks great. There are tons of hollow terrain feature that would fit nicely over those hinges and hide them.

Thanks for the comments,

Might be a good idea, but you can sort of see from how I put the filler around the hinges, that they are very long. The table feels really solid and the boards line up pretty tight.

Love the idea. Looks great. Gonna try this out.

But for the brace idea, I'd rather have them swing out or pull out because I see what you want. Store it in a closet or behind the door. If the braces where out across the the entire table and poking out they would make storage and moving a nightmare because they would either break off from a hall way corner or knock/break something.

 Haskell wrote:
Love the idea. Looks great. Gonna try this out.

But for the brace idea, I'd rather have them swing out or pull out because I see what you want. Store it in a closet or behind the door. If the braces where out across the the entire table and poking out they would make storage and moving a nightmare because they would either break off from a hall way corner or knock/break something.

I believe that he means brackets as in the red bits on his pic, the places you can slide the bars into to help hold the table. you can use the same idea and just use slots of wood and the brackets or even boards for the same job. the idea is that you have a bit there to hold the bars/planks/slots/boards inplace on the main table (red) and the bars/poles/slots/ect (yellow)

this board is a great idea! I love how easy it looks to set up and take down, alltho it looks a bit small for my taste =[ , I have a 8ft by 4ft peace of plywood I got from home depot for $19 marked out with lines to show all deployments and a 2 foot end gap on one side to have your armies and books/dice hang out. when we do apoc I just slide in a second 8' by 4' and you can get lots of board space with just picking it back up and stashing it under your bead or in ur garage!

Simple but effective. I love it!

Cool marines, I used to play White Scars to my favourite chapter.

Is that board strong enough to hold a beer when playing??

 RedTerroar wrote:
Cool marines, I used to play White Scars to my favourite chapter.

Is that board strong enough to hold a beer when playing??

HAHA!! Exalted!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh shoot I forgot to mention that I do like the table! It looks very mobile!


I can't afford my dream table from Geek Chic yet... Dang if those things aren't dreamy!

Anyway back to reality.

 death_scythe wrote:


I believe that he means brackets as in the red bits on his pic, the places you can slide the bars into to help hold the table. you can use the same idea and just use slots of wood and the brackets or even boards for the same job. the idea is that you have a bit there to hold the bars/planks/slots/boards inplace on the main table (red) and the bars/poles/slots/ect (yellow)

ok yeah i see, i probably speed read that

my table is a 10x4 with saw horses under them

 RedTerroar wrote:
Cool marines, I used to play White Scars to my favourite chapter.

Is that board strong enough to hold a beer when playing??

Yep, it is pretty strong, the hinges are huge and have about 12 screws in them.

Pretty good then i think its a good job for first time making board.

Next time try more color and a bit hillier. i can give you tips so PM if you want those to improve

Well done. What spray adhesive do you use? I've been experimenting with them but none of them seem to work as a good permanent adhesive solution -- if you're even the slightest bit abrasive (that is to say as much as sliding a based model across some spray-glued grass), the stuff scrapes right up. Horrible luck here for me.

Very cool, I am making a table that will have to be movable, not enough space to make a permanent one, so I will probably use this same principle.