Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Tabletop . . . Table
- Thread starter Triggerhappy
- Start date
2 hours? In what, a room with a couple of dehumidifiers going full blast?
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Two hours between applications typically what's given on the back of cans for 'quick drying' sealants and stains. They still require a full 24 hours before handling of course, but that's not the problem. As near as I can tell this is 'technically' correct, the best kind of correct. Two hours gives the surface treatment time enough to cure so it won't be dissolved and washed up in a followup coat. The problem is that two hours is not nearly long enough for the coating to cure enough to resist being scrapped away by the between coat buffing/sanding process. You really need to wait for it to dry completely so that it won't either peeled away or gum up your sanding medium.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Well, I finished the stain and put on the first poly coat.
Hopefully I haven't made a terrible mistake.
Edit : My understanding is that so long as the stain has been properly applied it should even out a bit as the wood mellows. Really couldn't help the splotches where I had to apply the plastic wood. Didn't realize how it would get into the wood pores being my first time.
Hopefully I haven't made a terrible mistake.
Edit : My understanding is that so long as the stain has been properly applied it should even out a bit as the wood mellows. Really couldn't help the splotches where I had to apply the plastic wood. Didn't realize how it would get into the wood pores being my first time.
Last edited:
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Top half is finished and fully sealed
Now i just have to flip it over and stain/seal the bottom.
Fun fact. During the stain/poly process a couple of the slats actually unbowed slightly. So its now actually kind of hard to put them in.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Stain is cheap. And I'm a completionist.
Fun fact. I picked Sedona Red cuz, near as I know, it is not trying to imitated any natural wood color. Thus shutting down the lumber humpers in the amateur carpentry community who whine that you shouldn't stain wood to imitate what it isn't.
"This is a fantasy table that I have stained to look like Draconic Red Mahogany which it imitates perfectly and there's nothing you can say to prove otherwise
"
Last edited:
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
It's gonna be more important for cooling once I get the plexi-glass cut to cover the screen on top. If you look at the pictures with the tv installed you'll see that there's a lip for plexi-glass to be exactly fitted into place. This should both protect the screen from scratching and the pressure of larger miniatures being placed over top.
I'm especially paranoid about the latter seeing as I ruined my garage TV recently when I managed to crack the screen while moving it. TV's today are fragile as fuck.
I thought about cutting side holes for cable control, but in the end I figured it would be easier and work just as well to use some ready made options to tie the cables to the bottom side of the table with small screws and brackets.
Anyways, here's the brains of my setup :
And testing it all out
A Raspberry Pi 4 running an ARM quad-core 64 bit processor @ 1.5 Ghz with 4 Gb of RAM and 32 Gb of on-board SD storage. It also sports built in Bluetooth 5.0 and WiFi.
The case cost an additional twelve bucks and included heat sinks for the CPU, RAM, and USB controller, as well as a itty bitty fan to help with cooling.
I thought about just using a chromecast or a laptop. But I decided that, for 60 bucks, this offered a couple of advantages.
1. 4K streaming sticks are still in the 40-50 dollar range. Since I already shelled out for a (cheap) 4K tv I thought it would be waste not to be used that extra resolution. The Pi4 can drive two 4K screens. And while it does struggle to do 4K video, it can do it. I don't think we'll need the hi-def streaming capability though. I imagine this mainly driving maps and some music/SFX. Maybe a touch overlay in the future. My GM is REALLY enamored with that idea.
2. Streaming sticks can only do streaming. Which means a GM has to bring their own laptop. This way, they can just bring a USB stick with whatever they need or log in directly to RollD20. No need to worry about futzing with the established setup. The pi could even drive a second PC monitor for the DM to use as their private display.
3. If they still want to stream, it should be easy enough to set up a remote instance using the Pi. This also gets around the problem that some laptops, like the Surface or MacBooks, don't come with an HDMI output.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Behold. Finished and installed in my nerd lair . . . The garage.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Well, we're using it tonight so . . . That's basically the plan.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
What are you playing?
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Sadly, the game got cancelled but our GM still came over so we could test everything out.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Honestly it's not nearly as noticeable at normal viewing angle.
Also, the stain job is growing on me, but I already found a chip in the tabletop that I had to re-stain to hide
I think someone tossed something sharp, hard, and heavy on it, and it landed on its edge.
Softwoods are not meant for this
.I think I'm going to need to buy another can of poly and simply keep coating the top until it's got a nice THICK layer for protection.
Last edited:
So by "poly" you mean a clear lacquer to create a hard surface?Honestly it's not nearly as noticeable at normal viewing angle.
Also, the stain job is growing on me, but I already found a chip in the tabletop that I had to re-stain to hide
I think someone tossed something sharp, hard, and heavy on it, and it landed on its edge.
Softwoods are not meant for this
I think I'm going to need to buy another can of poly and simply keep coating the top until it's got a nice THICK layer for protection.
On the chip I don't suppose anyone is using one of the metal dice that have become so popular these days? Most gaming groups I'm aware of have banned their use unless you're rolling on a dice box or something else to protect the table surface.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
Polyeurethane. It's not the same thing as lacquer. They're use for similar purpose, to protect the finished wood from moisture and minor abrasion, but they're chemically quite different.
That's the thing, I found the chip before we'd even used it for a game.
I mean, the damage was very tiny. It's less of a chip and more a very narrow tiny cut into the wood and after I stain it I have trouble finding it even knowing where it is. I'm not quite sure what could have caused it TBH.