Geraths Design

The site you posted has some great tips for people that want to make a table for themselves and the end result is a great looking board. However, the board featured on that site is not exactly built to the same standards as the one I just produced. Besides, not everyone is a do-it-yourselfer. Bear in mind that this one was built by a professional exhibit studio, with expensive woods and materials and represents quite a few hours of labor. The board was designed not only for playing, but as an art and exhibit piece as well. I understand that most players are not looking for a game board built to these kinds of standards and are just fine playing on painted fiber board. However, there are the odd few out there who go for the higher end game items. These are the same type who buy the fancy limited edition game sets and $500 chess boards, etc... The reason I built this board was so that my wife, daughter and myself would have a nice table to play the game on. I really was not looking to gather customers; but if someone is truly serious about having such a board built I would certainly entertain the idea and furnish a quote if they asked. Cheers, Dana http://www.GerathsDesign.com

If you are asking if the islands are attached to the board the answer is no. However, they are marked to go in specific spots on the board. That is just a feature that I put into this one. Any boards built at a later date could be customized to fit the clients needs. Dana http://www.GerathsDesign.com

I can certainly custom make any type of table you like, however for most, the table pictured would be far past their budgets for such a thing. If I had been making this for a client, it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 or so. Dana http://www.GerathsDesign.com

Greetings all, Well, after an afternoon of finish work, the board is finally done. Below I have posted some pictures of the finished product. Here is an overall view of the board. The whole thing consists of two main parts, the board itself, and the base with angle card holder. This shot shows the details of the island layout. Note the colors of the water. I did this to give the effect of depth and realism. Although it is not very noticeable in this shot, some of the areas around the islands have a hint of green, giving the illusion of reefs and sea plants. The base section is encircled by oak angle boards designed to hold ship cards, crew chits, etc... For decoration, the card panels each have a gold compass cross on each end and a single letter indicating direction. The compass letter is painted in a blood red with gold boarder. Here is a close up view of the West end of the board. This view shows the "rope" edging. The edging was first painted a medium sand brown and then dry brushed a lighter rope shade for highlighting. It was then coated with a semi-gloss lacquer. Here is a good shot of the islands themselves. Each one was carefully heat carved from high density foam, painted, textured and finished... complete with tiny palm trees. The islands are not attached to the board but are carefully marked for placement on the board with corresponding letters and numbers (not visible while the islands are in place). The "ocean" was painted onto laminate board and then covered with a clear sheet of acrylic to give it the gloss appearance. The compass star and chart markings were done on the underside of the acrylic sheet before it was placed over the ocean. The entire thing represents about four or five afternoons worth of designing and construction. Dana http://www.GerathsDesign.com

Greetings all, I have been reading this thread with some interest. I thought I would post some photos of a game board that I recently made. My name is Dana Geraths, I own Geraths Design, a small exhibit design and construction company in Salem, OR. My family recently got interested in this great little game; However, I was not terribly interested in playing it on a plain old kitchen table... no charm at all. So, to fix that problem I spend a couple of days in my shop and built the board shown below. I thought that some of you would like to see what the finished product looks like. It measures 3' x 3' feet. Dana Geraths Design