Share this post
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter
Nicole Simeone
DIY Dejarik Table
- ,
- , DIY
You're going to have to learn how to let the Wookie win after this one.
Anyone who saw the amazeballs, fully electronic Dejarik table someone built using a 3D printer and serious electrician skills definitely wanted one. Not going to lie, I saw it and really wanted one. If you are one of those people and are reading this, I don’t want to get your hopes up. So, first things first, while I do have access to a person with the electrician skills, I am short a 3D printer. Yes, this means my Dejarik table instructions will not be in that class of awesome. Don’t click away, though.
The instructions I have here do have accessibility upsides. The tools and techniques used to create a Dejarik table are far and away more available than getting into wiring and investing in a specialty printer.
Below is a list of items you will need:
- Table/Circular Surface
- Cricut Cutting Machine
- Cricut Cutting Mat (Size dependent on your personal project)
- Cricut Adhesive Vinyl - Black
- Patience
- Steady hand
One tool that you may not have that I used is a Cricut, but there are alternatives to that tool. By alternatives, I mean pestering a friend that does have one. If you don’t have one of those, then you can use the old reliable options: poster board, ruler, pencil, X-acto knife for a template and then get some black matte spray paint.
Step one is going to be to measure the diameter of the table you selected for this project. When creating ours, we purchased a 23.5 inch aluminum table from Walmart for about $40. We chose that table for three reasons: it was easily disassembled for storage, the table’s diameter worked well with the Cricut’s size limitations, and it was already silver. After measuring, subtract about an inch and a quarter from the table’s diameter to set your gameboard’s outer limit.
Next, Google a basic image of the Dejarik board and copy it into Paint. From there, save it as a png file and upload it to the Cricut Design software. During the upload process, you have the option of erasing the space you don’t want to be print/cut so you can click away all of the white space.
Once in the Design Space, use the slice function to cut the image in half. I used the generic shapes option to bring out a square, then the align functions to put the square directly over half of the board.
The example below is much smaller just so the whole image is in view.
Enlarge the image halves to the size you need for your table. For our table, I blew up the image slices to 11.033″ wide and 22 inches high. At this point, you are ready to cut.
During our build, we thought cutting a template out of poster board and then using spray paint would be the best option. Initially, we thought it looked pretty good. Lifting the poster board off of the table did pull some of the paint off at the corners. After some thought on how to touch up the nicks, I came up with Cricut Vinyl. I had done some vinyl letters for a friend’s wedding and had leftovers. I would definitely recommend going the Cricut Vinyl route. It looks much better than spray paint.
Ultimately, if you feel more comfortable with a template and spray paint, go for it. This is your table after all.
This is the part where the steady hand and patience come into play. Once the vinyl is cut, carefully remove the protective backing and lay it on to the surface. After laying down the pieces, we did have to spend some time rolling out air bubbles.
This table is all well and good but what about the pieces?
I could have taken the time to find pictures of each of the creatures from the game and used the Cricut to create paper versions. But, there was a deadline on this game and my patience had been expended on the board creation. I threw money at the problem and purchased miniatures of each of the creatures. Below are the pieces by name:
- Ghhhk
- Grimtaash
- Houjix
- K'lor'lsug
- Mantellian Savrip
- Monnok
- Ng'ok
As a finishing touch, I painted blue and read tokens to represent the hit points for each player. These can be set around the outside edge of the board as points are accumulated.
Great. I have my table all ready to go. How do I play it? That is an excellent question…tune in next week!