It's almost time for Warmachine Weekend!

Well I missed the mark of being fully painted for the big show. I got about 80% of the way there, and you know what? I'm actually proud of that. I have over a hundred models packed and ready to go. For those of you who are Warhammer players you might Pfft at 100 models, I know, I know you did that many Space Marines for breakfast. Warmachine models are different. They are in 30mm heroic scale and each individual model is more detailed. It's much easier to paint a 10 man squad of SM than 10 Iron Fang Pikeman.

So yea I have all my stuff by the door. All the models. The camera, lightbox, tripod. Trays to carry models. My entry into the Painting contest... enough to fill up the trunk.

I plan to take a crazy amount of pictures and will post them up over a week or so when I get back on Monday.

I hope your weekends will be as amazing as I hope mine turns out to be.

Tournament Tray Reduex.....

In my ever widening approach to not getting my Iron Fang Pikeman finished, a friend had seen my tray and asked if I could make him one as well. Naturally I jumped on the chance to help a buddy out and to play in the wood shop. Let's be honest, how doesn't love to play with power tools?

I started by figuring out how many of what type of bases were needed, then headed to the local hardware store to pick up a piece of scrap wood (for free!). After that I asked my wife to do her amazing sign/graphics/vinyl cutting juju and she created a fantastic template that would work. We secured the template to the wood and basically drew quite a few circles. This gave me a guide on where to cut and most importantly where not to!

With the board in hand it was time to go to the drill press. I used Forschner bits and set the depth to about 5mm below the level of the board. This gave me a good cut and prevented me from drilling too deep. It took about 30 minuted to drill all the holes and we had this.

The next step was to sand the whole thing. The goal is to get it nice and smooth to both prevent splintering and to make it easy and smooth when I apply the paint.

After sanding I used a bit of Wood filler to cover up the drill holes in the middle of each cut out. I did not do this on my previous board and now I wish I had. The wood putty dried in about an hour and then it was time to sand that down to level.

Now for the fun part...... painting. I used an all purpose oil based enamel paint for this. I wanted something that would both seal and protect the wood from drops, scratches, getting tossed in the trunk etc.  A quick note about this paint, it's sticky and takes hours to dry between coats. So I recommend getting outside if the weather permits, grabbing something cold to drink and a good book or your fully charged electronic device of choice and go at it. Also wear gloves when working with this type of paint. It's a bear to get off your skin.

I started by painting the underside. It's quicker and a flat surface so its easier to put up on blocks for when its time to flip over the board.

After this dried for a few hours it was time to turn it over and do the front....

In this step you want to make sure to get paint into all the nooks and crannies. as any light color will show up starkly against the black. Additionally make sure as you go that extra paint is not pooling into your cuts. It would suck to get this done and then your bases don't fit because the paint made the holes a bit small.


Now its just a matter of waiting a few days for the paint to cure then I'll varnish it and add a few vinyl decals and blam another board is done, and the Iron Fang Pikeman will still be sitting on my desk.....

Making a Tournament Tray.

I am heading to Warmachine Weekend in November. It is my first Con, and I am about as excited as a seven year old on Christmas Eve. That being said. I am getting everything together and ready to go. I have about 65 models that still need to be painted. Tokens to get, a bag to carry everything in etc., and trying to save a bit of money is a must. I need a tournament tray and sadly the ones that would fit my armies would run in the $125- $150 range. Stores like Broken Egg Games has amazing trays but I honestly can't justify the cost. So I set out to see if I could do it myself, and still have a high quality tray.

I started where all married men do, by asking my wife. She is a graphic designer and she helped (well made the whole thing really amazing) by laying out a template for slot spacing. I picked up a piece of scrap wood from Ace Hardware for $7. I got a 17"x 21" composite MDF board that had an actual grain on it. My wife then printed out the stencils and marked the board for drilling.

In the picture you can see how the original thought was to have all the model slots around a large middle rectangle that had a card holder in the middle. 

Cutting out the slots was done on a drill press with, 31mm, 41mm and 52mm router bits. Surprisingly there was not too much splintering on the wood during drilling. 

Instead of drilling the center storage of the board I found it made more sense to create a little box. I took a 36" piece of pine cut it to length and used wood glue to secure it to the board.

Then it was time to sand, and sand, and sand..... each individual hole needed to be sanded smooth.

I also rounded the corners a bit as sharp corners not only hurt, but they can chip and splinter.

After sanding and all that work, I realized that I had missed two 50mm slots that I needed. I had to knock out some of the middle box. I decided not to remove the sides and shorten them as removing just the one smaller piece of pine caused a bit of damage that took about 20 minutes of sanding to fix.


Then it was off to the paint shop. I used a black enamel paint that seals and protects the wood. It required a few coats and about 6 hours to cure.

But now I have a tournament tray ready for use that will last for years. The best part? It cost a total of $12 (not including time) and the project took about 10 hours (including my wife's design time) from start to finish.

Model Tray - A Review of a new product.

Dragon's Lair Accessories was kind enough to send me the first of a kind new tournament tray. For those of you not familiar with such things, tournaments are crazy and stuffed with people and moving your army's from table to table can be a chore. Tournament trays have been hitting the scene for a few years now and there are several big name places selling them in the $80+ range.  DLA is looking to break into the market and are much better priced. DLA has gone with real wood, and I like that. Other companies offer trays in both wood and acrylic (acrylic can be laser etched and personalized more readily. etc).

Here are a few pics of the DLA tray so you know what I am referring to.

So how does the DLA tray compare?

The good:

1. Its big and pretty darn light considering its wood. (when metal models are added this becomes a big factor).

2. I really like the long front piece that can hold, dice, cards, tape measure etc.

3. Interchangeable slots so that you can change your configuration based on army composition.

4. It's very sturdy and well put together.

5. Slots are well drilled and plenty deep to keep models in place when on the tray.
The could be better.

The needs improvement list:

1. While the wood is stained it could use a varnish coat. It is still rough (I will do this myself to seal it this weekend).

2. The interchangeable slots are too easy to pop out from the bottom, which could lead to spilled over models and nobody wants that. (I am going to add a few magnets to the corners of the board and the parts and see how that does.

So what's my final take on them? I think they are pretty darn good deal for the money he is asking. A few kinks to work out but then what new product doesn't have a few?

If you are looking for a tray and wan't to support the little guy jump over to DLA store and give him some business. (link is in the name at the beginning of this post).