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Emerald Fists - Sternguard PIP 2

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Another week and more progress. I'm nearing the end on these ones. Some lenses and I think I'm finished!

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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

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

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 with a n

Company of Heroes Board Game - Painted Bunkers

I picked up the Company of Heroes Board Game and it's been pretty fun so far. It has tons of terrain and I've started to paint it. Less tell more show. I primed them grey and stippled on a bunch of random colours including red, tans, green and browns, then drybrushed lighter grey on top and washed it in devlan mud. The rust spots were done initially with tin bitz followed by an orange acrylic drybrush, generously in some spots. I also added some metal chain link I had to the two ports on top. I think those spots were intended to hold troops or dice but the fit was bad and they looked too plain anyway. I hit point die should still fit in there regardless. Next up some battlefield defences.

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

Company of Heroes Board Game Buildings Painted

I finished the last of my Company of Heroes terrain - the 9 houses (standard buildings?) and the 8 ruins (destroyed buildings) from the Terrain Pack. I may do the objectives later and some tanks but not right now. I did the base coat with my airbrush and some wych flesh but discovered that my airbrush head was SUPER clogged. It took two hours to realize this, clean everything and get the painting done; but at least it's a smooth coat. Brushing that on would take forever. I also didn't go overboard on detail, I just did a single coat for the bricks and windows (red and browns) and didn't bother with any shading. I just didn't care that much. For the roofs though, I did to a coat of bestial brown, some spots of khorne red and then dry brushed blazing orange. It's just enough for visual interest but not so much that I had to spend more than an evening getting the terrain done. These aren't intended to be display quality so it's "good enough" without

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

Company of Heroes Board Game Cathedral and Emplacements Painted

Continuing with my terrain for Company of Heroes, I painted up the cathedral, the emplacements and the weapons. For the cathedral I kept it simple and airbrushed quickly, some vomit brown and bestial brown on top. I added some minor wash to the pillars, added some brown to the doors and that's about it. I didn't want to spend countless hours on this so just a quick paint job. For the emplacements I spent a bit more time and picked out details and drybrushed and washed everything. The weapons themselves (I painted all 30) were a quick coat of green (charadan granite), a light green drybrush and a black wash. I don't intend to put any of this in a displace case so I tried to keep to an evening paint job.

Kingdom Death Lion God Part1

Next up is the Lion God. This model is huge. That's a 3 x 3 size base so he's on par with the Phoenix and Gorm. Really makes his penises look menacing haha. For colours I went with lion inspired colours which should also set him apart from the white lion. I think I could have gone with a silvery/grey colour but then they'd look too similar. Tau Sept Ochre and Snakebite Leather were the main colours for the body.

Walnut Hexagonal Pencil - Woodworking

I wanted to upgrade my pencils for Kingdom Death and assumed that all mechanical pencils were thin lead that breaks easy so I grabbed this kit as a test. It's thicker lead and intended for a workshop markup pencil, so it's harder to keep a point but hasn't been a major problem. I don't have a lathe so I tried to cut it hexagonal to match the hardware. I cut up 4 blanks before I could mentally figure out how to use a jig I'd made to actually make the shape. The first few times I ended up with a 5 sided polygon that looked like a school zone sign. But eventually I got it! Finished with linseed oil.

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