How to Make a Gaming Table - Spectral Arbor Style.
Like all things that I do, the first thing is to do it wrong, then figure out how to do it right. In doing so, I then enjoy explaining my mistakes to others, so that they can learn and enjoy my misery.
So how did I start this out? First thing, was I wanted to make a table to resemble the barren wastes of my favourite video game universe. Fallout. But I wanted something 40k like, that also gave a good reason to have all kinds of different armies coming to visit.
Post-Apocalyptic landscapes fascninate me, not because of the destruction before, but the way life returns, no matter what. In 40k, there's the notion of Exterminatus. It ends the planet. Forever. But what if a planet somehow restarted? Some kind of Genesis project? [Star Trek III, The Search for Spock, if you're of the youngling variety] Wouldn't you want to go find out? Maybe it's some kind of legit sci-fi experiment. Maybe it's some kind of warp power? Or a Tomb World reactivating. Maybe the Overlord is a Biology major, or something? Maybe the Nids are involved somehow?
Regardless, there's a reason to investigate. Those ruins could hold the secrets of what's going on. Those plants, we've never seen them. What's going on with that? Why are there bulging rock formations everywhere? What's happening here?
I can have ruins that are being overrun with vegetation... eventually. I can mix ruined structures with natural elements, so that they all kind of blend together. Even a city-fight mix of terrain can have hills with trees jutting up out of nowhere. I like that freedom in my terrain mix.
For me, post-apocalyptic lets me play on a board I'm interested in, with the freedom to use whatever terrain types I want. Win-Win.
The first mistake, was using a free piece of plywood that a friend had left over from a construction job. The board is 3/4” thick, and weighs about 100 lbs, I swear. 1/2” thick, or less, is definately the way to go, but I went with free and now I need a crane to lift my table top.
I had started this project in the summer, it's now February. I had a lot of things come up between here and there, mostly involving moving house in a short time frame. My first plan was to “prime” the board dark brown, then spray it with spray adhesive, dump sand on it, and then shake off the excess. That didn't work, as you'll see in the first picture.
But, not one to be discouraged, I decided to buy a one-galon jug of carpenter's glue, and a bag of Quickrete All-Purpose Sand. It's 20 kg per bag, for about $6, and I think I used about 1 kg of it. If you need sand, I know where you can get some on the cheap! Wonder what a gallon of glue looks like? That's a Death Company Marine for scale.
I knew it was going on thick, so I put a circle of painters tape [pulls off easy] around the outside, so the glue wouldn't run off. In the end, I used about 3/4 of the jug, maybe a bit more.
I poured some out, not being sure how far it would go...
spread it around...
then determined I needed a fair bit more, because I only wanted to do a single layer of sand.
Yes, that is an ocean of glue, on a table. See how thick it is? Turns out, there's a really good reason to do it that way! I started in the centre, and spiraled out with a bucket of sand. I then spread the sand by hand, and filled in some gaps with more sand. Most of it would later fall off, but I wanted to have lots to spread around.
I then waited. I touched and poked my sand for several days, then forgot about it for a few more. A week later... maybe a week and a half... I tipped the table on it's side, brushed it off with a broom, and WHAM!
I was greated with some incredible textures! Because the glue was so thick, it's practically resin underneath, and my pushing and pulling and pressing into the sand led, quite unintentionally, to what I think is an amazing degree of texture and shape! I've put the board up on its end, as my lighting isn't too great in that room, and I wanted to capture the shadows of the textures to show off.
You might also notice, that there are some largish rocks still stuck to the board. That's after being thoroughly brushed with a broom. I can pick them off, if I try, but the thick glue is holding them in place quite nicely. Here's another picture, where you can see the unfortunate side effect of starting in the centre and spiraling out. I can see a distinct spiral pattern in the centre of the board, which I would reccomend against, if you're interested in following this idea. I'm going to work with flock to try to break it up, later, but I'd probably just not do it that way in the first place. Maybe zig-zag the sand, instead. Either board width, or in smaller sections to break up the “waves”. Or just use a lighter “dusting” method of applying the sand, but I am quite happy with the ridges that developed from smooshing the sand around.
One last picture, for good measure.
So, I've used wood stain before. In the Summer. Where I could leave things outside for a while, to speed the de-stinking process. Thing is, you can't really do that in Winter, and like I've said, I like to make mistakes and then tell others about them so they can be entertained. This is one of those scenarios. We had company coming over 2 days after I stained this. I thought, “It's a closed room, at worst I'll open the window and nobody will go in, nobody will be the wiser.
It stank up my whole house. For days. Just before company came over, I wrestled this beast up the stairs and into my garrage, but it stank so bad it was coming in from the garrage some. IF YOU DON'T PAY THE BILLS AT YOUR HOME, WAIT UNTIL SUMMER. Or think ahead and do this in your shed. For the love of the Emperor, don't do this inside your basement.
I had some leftover wood stain. Some light, some dark, so I mixed it all together expecting medium stain and instead got a lot of DARK stain. Oh well, I don't mind, but I had intended on having something a bit lighter to work with.
Why wood stain, you might ask? I had it kicking around, and it shaded the stones nicely. It dries fairly matte, as you'll see later. It also acts to seal the table pretty well...
Although it looks like I'll be battling on chocolate pudding, right now. Fortune favours the bold! Another angle to show the texture better.
Now a picture of the dried stain. I'd say about a week and a half. I soaked the thing, and it was “drying” in -10 to -20 Celcius conditions. Again, I'd suggest that this should be a summertime project. I'm not sure if you can tell, but the stain has acted like a wash, shading the stones and colouring the base. The lighter spots on the table are brighter stones that the stain has washed off of.
So now onto the flocking. Did you know that GW changed its blend for “Scorched Grass” flock? I didn't! That's why I have a patch of green flock in the lower corner, and browner flock on the rest. Grrrr... You can see the wet glue in patches beneath the flock. In keeping with the “regrowth” idea, I didn't want to have the flock covering most of the table. I wanted large patches of barren earth to still show through. I like it; up yours if you don't.
And this is the picture of the dried table. There's some funky white patches under some of the smaller patches of flock, and I'll probably wind up doing a second coat of flock over those and maybe the greener sections, to even out the look... but that's where I'm at for the moment.
On the whole, I'm quite happy with it, and am really excited about the textures and, well, having a table again. I've got some scenery made up, but don't have my phone on me to snap any pictures of it. I'll try to follow up in a little while with scenery pictures.
So yeah! If you're looking to make your own table, I'd suggest using 1/2” thick or thinner, use the process above except maybe do it in the summer time.
Unless you like wood stain stink, in which case you could do it the Spectral Arbor way!