Sunday, July 31, 2016
General Finishes - Spiced Walnut
I made a rustic crate. It's basically just a box. But, we wanted it stained darker rather than the bright yellowish color of pine. So, off to General Finishes we go and to their swatches. We opted for an oil-based liquid stain, specifically Spiced Walnut Oil Stain. After the jump are some pictures of how it turns out on pine.
Friday, July 29, 2016
Elongated Octagonal Dice Tray - Maple with Cork Lining
Maple with cork lining |
As always, they are available on Etsy.
Elongated Octagon
Octagon (domestic hardwoods)
Octagon (exotic hardwoods)
Small Rectangle
Large Square
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Square Dice Tray - Black
Those dice have so much space! |
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
General Finishes - Black
Three Coats of Stain on Red Oak, Six Coats of Varnish |
General Finishes makes a family of stains, gel stains, that are thick and seemed to me to be ideal for the task of "turn this non-black wood into black wood." I used General Finishes Black Gel Stain. A quick overview of it is after the jump.
Monday, July 18, 2016
Small Rectangular Dice Tray Gallery
Like I've done with the octagonal and elongated octagonal dice tray. I wanted to create a central gallery for the color and material combinations that I've made and photographed.
Pics after the jump.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Small Rectangular Dice Tray - Ash with Black Felt
Just wanted to provide photos of another wood and color combo. This time, ash paired with black felt. As with essentially all of my pictures with dice, the gold dice are 12 mm (1/2") and the blue dice are 19 mm (3/4").
More pics after the jump.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Small Rectangular Dice Tray - Walnut Red Felt
Designing something to be used involves a surprising amount of factors. Typically, nearly everything you use that has been produced by a major corporation has been engineered to death (well, it ought to have been at least). Someone has thought through the ergonomics of how it's used, how its user will react to using it. Someone has thought through all of the minor details of how others will perceive its use. Here's a fun fact about my operation: I have precisely zero engineers. I do all of the design myself, and, spoiler-alert, I'm not an engineer (yes, presses are stopped).
Here's a thing I never considered when designing the original octagonal dice tray or even when designing the elongated octagonal dice tray: a deep tray with high sides can obscure other players' views of your dice rolls. At a small tabletop game, it's not that big of an issue. The sight lines involved don't block the dice rolls. However, at big games, like a big wargaming session or at a con, the larger distances change the sight lines and can mean that rolls are hard for other players to see. Plus, at those games, there's a higher probability that schlepping your gear is an issue, so smaller actually can be better.
Enter the Small Rectangular Dice Tray.
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Lie-Nielsen No. 102 Low Angle Block Plane
Shiny |
... until this little beauty walked into my life: the Lie-Nielsen No. 102 Low Angle Block Plane.