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Grand Opening

September 13, 2011

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I've decided to join the blog fad and use it to show off all of my hobby items in one place. I'm going to attempt to add all of my stuff over the last few years with a few posts per week.

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Tak Game Board - Woodworking

A while back I posted my quarto game pieces here and those fit nicely with this game board. I quite enjoy the simplicity of that game, and more so the game "Tak". I wanted to make a nice game board that would work with both games so I set out to make a cutting board. I mean game board. You can see from the first image, that I essentially made a tiny cutting board. I salvaged some oak scrap I'd been hoarding for a long time and and because I didn't have much, the pieces were very thin. I added some walnut strips in between. Once that was glued up, I cut the 'board' into strips, and re-glued it with additional walnut strips to make a grid. Once that was dried, I glued the 'board' to a flat piece of walnut to give it more thickness (and strength). Then I squared it up. At this stage, I had a 5x5 grid, but I wanted something that marked the board as a 4x4 as well, for quarto. To do this, I drilled holes at each intersection and then used a chisel to make ...

Purple Heart Chess Board, and Storage Solutions

It was probably inevitable that I made a chess board. I used the opportunity to try out a 'fancy' wood. I grabbed enough purple heart and walnut to make the board and spent a long time on the internet looking for board designed I liked. I went with a raised design (there's a dado around the edge) and a chamfer on the top and the bottom so it floats a bit. The inside is hollow and was designed with a dado to allow clips for wood movement; but I couldn't find any and made the bad choice to just glue the board on instead. 6 months later and it obviously had cracked on one edge. The worst part is I knew better but convinced myself after reading a few forum posts it would be fine. Don't take the risk! I made a bade out of felt for it as well so I could store it without getting it scratched. All that protection and there's a crack... if it gets to the point where it's horribly large I'll probably try to break the 1/4" plywood bottom off and reassemble it...

DIY Quarto Boardgame (woodworking)

I decided to make my own Quarto boards; one for me and one as a gift. The rules are pretty straight forward and a bit different than most similar games (I'll group it with tik-tac-toe and Tak). In this game, you choose which piece your opponent places on the board and the goal is to get 4 pieces in a line that share a common characteristic (tall/short; dark/light; square/round; hollow/solid). That's it! I had been hoarding a piece of oak in my garage for many years (just a small piece of scrap) and decided to learn some techniques. I've never ripped boards down to custom sizes before, so given that this was a 1x3" board (0.75 nominal thickness) I cut 3 strips 3/4" wide. Then, to make the round ones, I had to make my own dowel. I watched a neat youtube video on how to do this; basically use a router to cut 1/4" rounds on all four sides. Then I drilled a screw into one end and hammered a nail into the other, attached my drill to the screw and spun the dowel a...

Woodworking - Star Wars Death Star Box on Lathe

With a bit more practice on the lathe I tried out making a sphere 'box'. Once I had the sphere made into a box (I won't explain that, many youtube videos for that) I took the lid to a belt sander and smoothed it down. Then I drilled a shallow hole with a forstner bit for the laser. My lathe skills aren't quite up to snuff so it wasn't a tight fit so I added a few magnets to hold it closed.

Tak Game Board #3 - Woodworking

To replace my original tak board (https://theambit.blogspot.com/2022/05/tak-game-board-woodworking.html) I decided to up my game a bit and instead of just a board, I wanted one that held all the pieces and also allowed a 6x6 and 5x5 grid size game. The base is 1/4" plywood with walls made of walnut, as are the dividers. I glued some green felt inside the trays. I drilled the divots out by clamping each wall (before glue up) to a sacrificial piece. Inside, I made the pieces out of walnut and maple. They're broken up into 3 trays each, which allows the correct amount of pieces to be taken whether playing 6x6 or 5x5 sized games. To make the capstone pieces, I used the same walnut and maple wood, and made little cutting boards essentially, in two glue ups, so I ended up with a checkboard pattern. The 2nd wood used on each capstone is a reddish wood I had. I'm not sure what it is, it was given to me. Perhaps it's paduk? I then used a sander to round these and make them ...

Chapter House Storm Raven Kit Review

I bought a storm raven a few weeks ago and ordered the Chapter House true-scale kit to go with it. Once they both arrived I started to put it together. There wasn't any warping and no flashing issues with the kit but the bottom plate did have some jagged edges where the sprue had been (I assume) snapped off. Minor issue and you can't really tell since you don't look bottom up on the model.

Cribbage Board - Woodworking

I wanted to try out something new (wavy patterns) so I decided to try it on some crib boards; which would basically just be a cutting board with holes in it. To start, I cut and planed a walnut plank down to size and then used a bandsaw to cut a wavy pattern in the board. I then glued a thin piece of wood between the boards and glued it up. After it dried, I did this two more times using maple and walnut (darker) than the board itself for some subtle transition. I find most things are worth making multiples since the time is in the setup and measuring so cutting a 2nd is always quick. Once the boards were dry, I planed them flat again and then added a chamfer around the outside. Adding the cribbage holes was a pain and not enjoyable. Hundreds of holes... I scaled a template down to fit on the boards (not the other way around) and then started drilling. Sadly because it was scaled down, a few of the holes moved due to either grain pattern or the laminated wood and then merged...

Blood Bowl 7s Pitch

My friends and I started with Blood Bowl when it was re-released but our little 'league' petered out pretty quickly since the games too way too long once you factored in learning new rules, and socializing. I saw someone post rules for Blood Bowl 7s and quickly saw how much better they were. I've played a few games in the last couple months under that rule set and I can say that for us, it is a vastly superior game. Less turns, less players, less spaces on the board, ultimately means the game takes 1/2 as long for us. Sure there may be less 'depth' since you can't develop long term plays, but each game I've played ranked in the most fun we've had playing the game. Because of this, I wanted a proper pitch (instead of just saying "don't use those squares" on my other board). I had this printed up by a fabric printing company on some thick neoprene and the detail looks great (image for the pitch is free online and about 4000 pixels so it sca...

Kingdom Death Smog Singers - Painted

I really wasn't sure what to do with these guys - I debated going with cooked or uncooked shrimp but wasn't inspired. I then saw some online done in this RGB theme and thought it was an amazing idea. It helps differentiate them in game as well. I wasn't sure what the goop was (colostrum or something? not blood). Ultimately I went with a generic slime. For the smoke I drybrushed a bright gold on top to match a hit location. Unfortunately the smoke was brittle (didn't glue well with plastic weld since the parts were too thin) and a few fell off. No harm I guess, saves it from breaking in game.

Paracord Tillley Hat Band

My newest little craft doesn't involve little painted miniatures at all. I was struck with the urge to make a hat band for my Tilley hat and picked up some paracord. I believe this is a 'cobra knot' though all of this knot stuff is super easy after watching youtube. I think there's a bit of hyped 'survival' gear aspect to paracord online which is a bit silly, but I think the band itself adds a little flair to my hat. Just to say I did though, I added some hidden fishing line, hooks and weights into the weave and also a P38 can opener. You never know when a survival situation might arise and all you have is your Tilley hat and need to open a can of beans...

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