Dan of Hammered Game Tables is quite the passionate person when it comes to the tables he sells and the satisfaction of his customers. In fact during the course of working on my table the matter of getting the right hardware to match my vision was becoming a tiny bit of an adventure.
One week day I was sitting down to lunch in a Mexican restaurant with two of my co-workers and my phone rang. It was Dan. I was used to Dan staying in touch during the process, but rarely had he called this early in the day, and calls were usually preceded by an email in advance so the call time could be coordinated.
I had yet to order, which was fine since I really had no clue what I wanted to eat. I took the call and on the other end was a very excited Dan. He had gone to an antique shop earlier and lucked into the perfect set of drawer pulls. As my co-workers ordered lunch, I listened to Dan describing what he had been doing and how cool he thought everything was turning out. Between bits of the tale I managed to place my lunch order.
Dan went on to describe six hefty antique cast iron drawer pulls and a smaller one that would be perfect for the lift on the table top. He continued describing that he had picked up some copper leafing, had applied it to a pull, and it was the reddish copper I had been seeking. Needless to say, I was quite happy about this discovery.
Getting to that selection of copper - I had sent Dan a series of pictures that included both finished copper items, and different types of copper ore.
Needless to say, I like copper, and I knew it would look great against the darker stain I had picked out.
But what about the rest of the table? Take a look at the pictures below and you'll see the Phoenix at various stages of production.
The experience of having a table custom built for my hobby has been a great adventure. If I were fortunate enough to have the space and money to burn, I have a couple of other ideas for tables. Since I am unlikely to ever reach that point here are those ideas in case anyone out there gets the chance to buy a table of their own.
Mind Flayers and Drow - Purple stain with burned in images of those creatures and other underdark denizens. The under-lip lighting might work best in blue to give a cold visual. Black hardware.
Cthulhu - Green stain with burned in images of various mythos creatures and of H.P. Lovecraft himself. Painted on the top of the table a large Elder Sign, painted at points around the lip of the table or on other accessories, the Yellow Sign. (A case can be made for flipping the choice of where the Elder and Yellow Signs get painted). Purple hardware. The under-lip lighting could be done in a number of colors depending on the visuals you were after. One possibility would be UV in the event that you had very tiny runes painted in a reactive color along the top of the higher strip of cladding.
Eladrin or High Elves - A pale grey stain. Bright silver hardware. White under-lip lighting. Elven runes and leaf patterns lightly painted on with bright silver.
Well, there we are, something wicked cool, revealed.
