More game table fun! Are you tired of this stuff yet? I hope not because there's plenty more work to do. For now, this is the last step. The only thing left to work on is the dining table part and I am taking a break before tackling that.
Dice trays are not integral to the functioning of a gaming table but they are a really cool addition. This table, in particular, does not lend itself to rolling dice on the main gaming area. The individual player spaces are not very deep so rolling dice on them could end in dice falling to the floor often. We decided that dice trays would help to contain the dice rolling to a specified space to make things easier. We talked about buying them. We talked about making them. We talked about making ones that are removable and we talked about making built-in trays. We talked about making trays that are hexagon shaped. We talked about making rectangle shapes. There was a lot of talk and then it was time to just jump in and try a few things. The first thing I tried was a hexagon shape because we thought it would be really cool. I think I need more practice to make this shape actually work.
It looks great but the angles didn't line up properly. I made them all 30 degrees. I'm guessing they didn't work because the lengths aren't exact? I don't know. I'll keep practicing and try to perfect it because I do love this shape. However, there are 9 gaming spaces which means I had 9 dice trays to make. I wanted to make something that would be easier. Once I decided to ditch the hexagon, we talked things through more and decided that a built-in tray would be better. Sometimes I overthink things and this was one of those times. I'm thankful that my husband was talking it through with me because, in the end, we settled on a very easy plan. My first step was to measure and draw out the general shape. I started on the Gaming Master area dice tray first because if I mess up, it's just my husband's dice tray, lol. JK, I actually care and wanted to make every dice tray turn out really nice. We decided on a space that is 4" x 9" but once this one was finished, we decided that 4" x 5" would work just fine for the rest of the gamer areas. The GM dice tray is perfectly fine being bigger because his space is larger than the rest of the spaces anyway.
Instead of having squared off corners, we decided that rounded ones would look better. This meant that we had to grab a hole cutter to start off the cutting.
Then I finished the cutting with my oscillating tool. I love this super-loud power tool!
Each hole needed a lot of sanding. I hate the detail work. I love seeing the results of it but I hate the tedium. It's always worth it so I still do it. It helps when I have a deadline. If there's no push to get it done, it takes me forever. I had a deadline on this so I just kept working until everything was done. I even filled in holes and did touch up paint on the whole table! That's pretty incredible for me.
The next step was to attach a bottom to the holes. I had some poker table speed cloth leftover so I used it for the dice trays.
It's such a small project that made a really nice impact. This table has taken a lot of my time. I've enjoyed it but I'm ready to move on. I still have some work left to do but I will get back to it later. I have several other projects that are half done. I'm anxious to get back to them. Now where's my wood glue?
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