Making a table for X Wing

 
So I recently had a friend over to play a game of X Wing. Normally when either my wife or I have some hobby time planned, we plan it so the other is available to look after our daughter. And failing that, we can usually arrange a babysitter but today I had no option but to game at home while I looked after my little girl. No problems. This would mean I wouldn't be able to play in the shed where my gaming table is set up, but would instead have to play in the house on the dining room table. Luckily, as you might remember I had a star mat on which to play!

Slight problem though. My dining room table is only 33" wide, and an X Wing board is 36" wide. So the mat was hanging off the edge.

Oh well, not to worry. I head off down to Bunnings to get a sheet of plywood to lay over the table, so that I can sit the star mat on it. But when I get to Bunnings, they don't actually sell 36" wide plywood. 36" comes to like, 910mm and the closest they have is 897mm. I know, weird size, right? Anyway, what difference is 13mm going to make? I buy the wood and take it home.

But now, the wood isn't flat. It's slightly warped and rocks on the table.

Sigh.

Ok, not a problem. I head back down to Bunnings and get some 18mm by 30mm pine batten to attach underneath the plywood as a frame to straighten it and give it some rigidity. I get a bit... perfectionist with this. I'm not a very good woodworker so I tend to do things the long way around and make a lot of mistakes. I attached the pine to the bottom of the plywood by gluing and screwing it. I pre-drilled the holes, measuring to get the in the right place, and countersunk the heads by drilling a larger hole where the screw heads would go.

Once I'd come this far I decided to go the whole hog and glue the star mat to the plywood (you might recall, I received two of them, so I had a spare) and glue down some felt on the ends to make it look all pretty.

The plan was to glue the star mat in the middle of the table. Since the plywood I bought was 1200mm long, this would leave me about 140mm on each end to glue some felt onto, just enough room to put some ship cards, upgrades, dice and damage cards etc. So I would glue the star mat in the middle, glue some navy blue felt on each end, then secure the edges with some 10mm by 20mm pine batten.

So I went back to Bunnings to get the pine, some more screws (I needed smaller ones because screws that were too large would split the timber) and some spray adhesive to stick the star mat and the felt to the table. Then I went to Spotlight to get the felt, and some black ribbon to glue down as a border between the star mat and the felt. As a bonus, the extra 20mm width on the table from the pine batten would make up the difference from the plywood being that bit short to start with.

I got a bit carried away with it all and forgot to take some photos of the early stages, but you can see here I've glued the star mat and the felt down, and am in the process of gluing the last piece of felt down. What I did was mark out 140mm from one end, then place some masking tape there. Then I placed the felt (which I had cut to size and ironed first, to get the wrinkles out) against the edge of the masking tape, then used MORE masking tape to tape the felt in place. Then I could fold the felt up, leaving the underside of it and the table underneath it exposed. I covered the rest of the table surface in newspaper to avoid getting glue on it, and I hit the table and felt with the spray adhesive. This stuff was great. It says 'safe for indoor use' but I would NOT use it indoors. Even spraying it outdoors I could feel it sticking onto my arm hairs and just getting all over the place. Outdoors only for this one.

The spray adhesive I used

Once I had sprayed both surfaces, I let the glue go tacky as per the instructions on the can, then folded the felt down gently and pulled it to remove any wrinkles. Jobs a good 'un. I forgot to apply any glue to the edges, so I used some PVA applied with an old paintbrush to glue down the edges.

Then I repeated the process for the star mat, but this time I used the edge of the felt as my guide for where to place it (thus making sure all of the table was covered) and I remembered to glue the edges of the table as well.

I really should have used a manual stapler to fix the star mat in place after I glued it down, but I felt like the glue was holding it in place well enough. It wasn't. Now that the table is finished, there is a slight 'bulging' effect along the edges of the star mat, it's not perfect but it's still acceptable.

The felt taped in place, ready to be glued down

The felt folded back, ready for the spray adhesive to be applied

Next step was to affix the pine battens. I used a mitre saw to cut the ends at 45 degrees so it would look nice, but I was a bit clumsy and some pieces were a touch short, and some were a bit rough. Never mind, a bit of paint and some filler will cover a multitude of sins. I measured and predrilled all the holes for affixing the battens, and then clamped them in place while I was screwing them. I also glued them before I screwed them. But the holes at the ends, probably the most important ones because they're the ones that pull the corners into each other, I didn't drill those holes deep enough and when I went to screw them in, the pine split. But I didn't have any spare pine so I had to take the screw out, re-drill the hole and then put the screw back in gently, just putting some pressure on it before stopping. Close enough.


The rest of the battens went on more smoothly because I learned from the first one and went back and drilled all the holes a bit deeper. I then filled all the holes with rapid set filler and I plan to paint the whole thing with a gloss black.

The table in use!

Until next time, happy gaming!