making a table

[Sane Max]

After many years I have……….. a Wargames room of my own!!

It means I can chuck out the various makeshifts, and actually buy a table!

It will rest on two fairly narrow chests of drawers, so the middle 3 feet will have no support, so will need to be warp-proof.

what should I use? Plywood or MDF? and what sort of thickness?

Pat

[Mike]

1″ chipboard?

[malc johnston]

MDF or Chipboard, but brace it underneath with wooden battens for support and strength, stop it from bowing, good luck with it.

Willyoupleasehelpmefixmykeyboard?Thespacebarisbroken!

[Otto Schmidt]

dear Sane Max

Been in the hobby a LONG time and tried many variations of table.  I’ve been rather lucky and have the whole finished basement to myself as a wargame room, and I  had a permanent table several times. THAT! I found was the worst mistake ever. First of all it dominated the room, and you could do little else. I even had constructed it ingeniously on a frame of 2 x 4’s where the 6 by 6 foot table was of two pieces which were hinged and could be raised, revealing below a work-space, desk, office area where I could type, and write and design, paint and do all sorts of things.

Sounds neat huh?

 

It was a disaster. The table top became a catch-all for everything  and every piece of crap I couldn’t find another place for, and my wife found the table top excellent for folding laundry or laying out  things for packing and unpacking (which never truly got packed or unpacked). In the end, it was a major project to clean UP the table top before I could set it up for a game. After two years I broke the whole thing down , sawed it up and it went up the chimney of the wood stove.

I then made a 6 by 9 table that  was easily collapsible and able to be set up.  I have a HUGE living room which is made on what used to be a patio deck above the garage. I built the living room out there so it’s 31′ by 16 ft with glass floor to ceiling on three sides. There’s lots of space and it could accommodate the pieces of table top  which I made to be 6 x9 on a good frame. But the hauling of the 6 x3 ft table tops up from the downstairs was  a pain.

So what I did  is what I now recommend to everyone. I made  eight table tops, each 3ft by 42″ in size.  These are created from simple  finished table top planks available in any Lowes, Home Depot or a lumber yard. These are pieces of wood cut to size, 1 ft by 4 ft, and you put three of them together, screwing them down with 1″ cheap angle iron as a bracing. Then you buy sets of table legs which are about $18 a pair. These are table legs to make cafeteria tables, and they easily fold up. This mounts right through the angle iron. When set up they are sturdy, rigid, and you can assemble them in an infinite number of configurations.  I made eight tables which gives me a max size of 6′ by 12 ft table top, or I can make it smaller if the game is not so expansive.  Further, they can easily be stored in a corner with a light cover over them which looks like a server or piece of furniture not out of place in any living room, and which doubles as a munchies and beer shelf when the table is up. The whole thing cost me about $200 for the 8 sections (the majority cost is the set of legs, and that includes even the false front cover.  I don’t have to haul it around, and even when I do, the individual sections are light and have convenient hand-holds with the legs and struts.

 

I heartily recommend this. A permanent table will turn into an unsightly mess because stuff just accumulates on any flat space in a normal house and after a while you won’t be able to see, or use, the table top for all the household rubbish.
The other great thing is that when I have a game at my place I can have up to a dozen people at a time. When the game is over the game easily breaks down, and three of the tables are left standing, moved to the center of the room and form the dinner table  which I can serve dinner on.  They are also hugely useful for parties, and if you ever have a garage sale, do excellent duty as tables for the stuff you sell. Hopefull you can sell some of the crap that normall festoons a permanent table.

One final thing. The use of the pinewood boards which is called finished pine, can be easily stained and varnished to give it a handsome and attractive finish.  The boards I made my table out of were “painting grade” which means that they are usually used for painted furniture. This was because the boards are made from the “ends of wood” glued and pressured together . It has an odd “parquay” effect which when you stain and varnish looks very handsome and picturesque- very rustic. As I live way out in the country it’s very fitting. I just hit it with a light clear stain, just to bring out the grain and several coats of spar varnish. Looks great.

With the sectional table I can also use only what I need. I’ve put two of them together for a board game or small skirmish, or the whole thing for a big 30mm 18th century battle. I heartily recommend it.  After a life of fiddling and fussing with various arrangements of table, it’s the best one I ever had.  Of course part of the success is that on the living room there are no walls, just floor to ceiling windows, and that’s cathedral ceilings to the roof peak on one end, so the lighting can’t be beat.

 

Otto

[paintpig]

malc johnston wrote:

MDF or Chipboard, but brace it underneath with wooden battens for support and strength, stop it from bowing, good luck with it.

Wot ‘e said, do remember to make sure the bracing is narrow side horizontal (against the chipboard) deep side vertical. It sounds obvious but my diy challenged mates have all fitted the bracing the wrong way round so basically reduced the effectiveness. If you can stretch the readies plump for 16 or 19mm ply, form ply has one decent surface and one rough so comes in cheaper than marine ply.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel
Slowly Over A Low Flame

[Sane Max]

see i would like to avoid bracing because I want to use both sides of the table.

I may have to spalsh out on another Chest of Drawers to go in the middle, they are so useful for storing stuff in. In an ideal world the GW approach of big cupboards with gaming board on top would be perfect, the room is small and I can use one as a painting table with the board up against the wall when not playing.

[malc johnston]

Then brace it more then put another side to it, that might help, even better get one of your kids to stand under it holding it up for a few hours while you enjoy yourself, thats what kids are for right !

Willyoupleasehelpmefixmykeyboard?Thespacebarisbroken!

[Lagartija Mike]

MDF, but you’ll need to seal it to prevent warping.

[Not Connard Sage]

paintpig wrote:

malc johnston wrote:

MDF or Chipboard, but brace it underneath with wooden battens for support and strength, stop it from bowing, good luck with it.

Wot ‘e said, do remember to make sure the bracing is narrow side horizontal (against the chipboard) deep side vertical. It sounds obvious but my diy challenged mates have all fitted the bracing the wrong way round so basically reduced the effectiveness. If you can stretch the readies plump for 16 or 19mm ply, form ply has one decent surface and one rough so comes in cheaper than marine ply.

 

Wot they said.

And if it’s a large sheet (6×4?) it’ll need bracing anyway because eventually it’ll begin to twist under its own weight simply from being moved around, and the effects of temperature in your lovely centrally heated northern hovel. 🙂

Years of building model railway baseboards have taught me that you can never have enough bracing…

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Don Glewwe]

For ‘using both sides’ …

Perhaps use hollow core door blanks (ie: no holes for handles or recesses for hinges).

They’re lightweight and (reasonably) cheap, and available(?) in a fair number of widths.  Granted, you’re stuck with the standard height, but 2 meters is okay(ish)?

 

PS – Not CS. I’ve asked nicely before, and I’ll do so again: Quit mentioning model RR.  I’m going to start billing you for the time I spend digging the old beast out to wonder if it should be resurrected.  Stop it, please.

[Not Connard Sage]

Sorry 🙁

 

Mine’s in the attic, in pieces. I avoid going up there…

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Don Glewwe]

Mine’s in the cellar.  I have to go there to fetch the wine…you understand the difficulty… ; )

[kyoteblue]

My game table is 1 inch plywood 4×6 with folding legs. It’s in the 3 car garage. No one but me sets any thing on it…..

[Blackhat]

I used to use a table made from 3 pieces of 5 x 2 MDF which rested on two cupboards. To prevent them sagging in the middle I used the metal uprights you use for fixing shelves to the wall and just fastened two of them together to get the length. Three of these supports were good enough to hold the table level..

Mike

[McLaddie]

Egads. It all sounds like a lot of work. I just bought a used, folding Ping-Pong table which is 5′ X 9′.  It has wheels on it and can be moved when folded like the wings of a carrier plane. It has one foot stripes I can add to the length and width with bracing for a 6′ X 10′ table.   Never needed anything else.  However, it remains in the garage where we game….

Bill

 

[Blackhat]

I have a table tennis table now – a cheap one that doesn’t fold but has collapsible legs. This meant I could store 18 50L Really Useful boxes under it each side for scenery, etc. I had looked at other options such as a small billiard table but there was no space for storage under it.

I have now folded up one side and slid that behind a bookcase to make more space in my room as I don’t play as many games at home as I expected. I can add it to the end of the table for big games for a 10 x 4.5 foot table and have space to move around the room more.

Mike

[Author]

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