cribbage players

I enjoy playing cribbage!

it is a fun game, perfect for long cold winters and nights at deer camp!

That looks good! It's almost summer, the street fair is calling your name! Assuming you live near a place that has street fairs? County fair maybe? Farmers market?

there is a farmers market about 150 yards from my house, every Thursday, from the end of May to the end of August.  It's not a big one, and IMO a little too costly ($15 for a 4 hour market).  BUT, my house is right on a corner that a lot of people have to go past to get to the market, so I am planning on getting a banner printed that I will 'wrap' around the corner, and will set up a tarp & table right there.  Should work almost as well as being at the market, and it's FREE!  I also plan on being a corner seller on the weekends all summer as well.  It's a nice, HONEST, community, so I won't even have to sit out there all day either.

that one is 10.25"x5.4", I figure $25 for it, it takes just over 2 hours to cut.

Thats pretty sweet, love the small-town vibes! I moved from a small down I grew up in, to a smaller town nearby when it got too big, then when that smaller town had 500 houses built down the road, we moved across the country to a town with maybe 600 people. I might have to drive an hour to work and 25 minutes to the nearest Walmart, but at least it's quiet and peaceful, and has a delightful farmers market. 

$25 might be low, but if you can cut a few while you sleep then pretty alright. 

well, I figure most of my prices at $10/hr machine time plus cost of wood (rounded up, it's about $7.50/ft, I round up to $10/ft to pay for gas to the lumber yard).  Yeah, it might be a low hourly rate, but I also don't want to price myself out of the market, add in that my finishing skills are poor, so they all end up on the rougher side.  The township (no true city, just a township) has a population of around 13k, population per sq.mile is 415 (32 sq.miles).

currently working on something that may have a market, may not.  A dungeon builder for RPG.  24"x24" board with a huge pocket for hex-shaped tiles (20x20 hexes for 400 tiles).  cut the board 0.040" deep, laser in the dividers for the tiles, then they can build the dungeon as they go, 13 different patterns for the hex tiles (rooms).  6-way, 5-way, 4-way, 3-way, 2-way, and 1-way (dead end).  The game master can build it the way he wants OR use a 6-sided dice to randomize the next room, etc.  There is a couple places in Lansing that do RPG/comics/nerds/etc. that might be an outlet for them

There is a market. You should think about ways to keep the item as thin as possible, and possibly include cover stone that magnets over the entire play surface to in order to retain the tiles orientation for the next play session ;) Also possibly a square version and a hexagon version to accommodate more players, no one likes to be "stuck at the corner of the map" 

Crap, my Nerd is showing! Shhhh!

well, the base board would be 1/2" MDF.  Cut the pocket to 0.040".  the plywood hexagons from Amazon are 0.060" thick, 100 for $9.  They would get the paths laser burned.  Since I carry my USB with all my designs with me to show people at work if they are interested in any work, and to save the work if they want a custom change (same cad software at home that I have at work).  This is the base board design (red is the pocket outline, blue is the laser burn).  It is possible to use use 1/4" plywood for the base, but it is more $ than 1/2" MDF.  Not really designed as a 'play' area, but as a tracking/mapping area, not enough room for miniature figures.

Ahhhh ok. It's going to be a 1" hex pattern right? 

yup, just like the 'standard' RPG hex mats.

Many possibilities, you could offer some solid color hex blocks so it could be used as a map, or they can use the board to create smaller rooms. 

Can you seal up the MDF to prevent it from sucking up water? Either from spilled drink or condensation rings from cold glasses. 

should be able to do that, a nice spray spar-varnish would seal it up tight, not sure what it would do to the size of the edges.  as for colored hexes, dip them in dye would color them nicely.  AND A POX ON ANY PLAYER WHO PUTS HIS DRINK ON THE GAME BOARD!!!!!!!  That rates right up there with touching the GM screen!

should be able to do that, a nice spray spar-varnish would seal it up tight, not sure what it would do to the size of the edges.  as for colored hexes, dip them in dye would color them nicely.  AND A POX ON ANY PLAYER WHO PUTS HIS DRINK ON THE GAME BOARD!!!!!!!  That rates right up there with touching the GM screen!

Not "on the game board" but next to the game board on the table will happen. We don't want the POX! 

back in the days when we played "Bushido Adventures in Samurai Japan" I made up a travel box (45 years ago or so).  Well, TWO travel boxes.  One for the Commodore-64 and printer, and one for my work surface.  My buddy ran the game, I wrote a BASIC program that would generate the random encounters (which ended up being called the DEATH MACHINE).  GM rolled for the random encounter, entered the numbers rolled through all the requirements, and it printed it out for him to use.  I made all the monsters (human and otherwise) a bit stronger, and number of them a bit larger, and it sped up game play enormously!  HUGE box, probably weighed 50 pounds with the PC and printer and an inch or so of the old dot-matrix paper in it.  It had removable legs and a power strip.  The other box was a table/dice storage system.  I kept my stuff on that one, so no chance of getting 'the pox'.  We used that for a number of years, then life happened, I progressed beyond the C64.  Eventually we started playing it again, but NO C64, so I made an Excel file that did the same thing.  Again, DEATH MACHINE label got applied to it!  His daughter is going to try to run the game now, she has the Excel DEATH MACHINE, and I also still have it, I even have it here at work!

You didn't lug a TV around, did you use one at his house or what? Well, I guess if you were super fancy you had the one with a lil screen on it? 
When I was a kid we had a C-64 but it was just hooked to a tv. 

It hooked up to his TV, wasn't lugging one around!

last night I designed up a 'play board' (battle board, whatever) to go along with the setup for the mapping board.  1" hexagons (again) but the over all shape is a hexagon, to 'match' the mapping hexagons, for encounters in each 'room' of the mapping board.  I won't need all the little hexes for building the map, just the laser lines for play.  BUT, it will need 'blockers' for blocking off each of the 6 areas that may or may not have a tunnel there.  the mapping hexes I made have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 'arms', so I have to make blocker plates to block off any un-used arms of the hex, if ya follow.  13 possible hex layouts to cover all the possible options on the mapping board, so I will need 5 'blocker' blocks to cover.  Again, red is the pocket, blue is the laser lines.  the green is the 'leg' blocker

sample tile for the mapping board, one of the 3-way options, dashed is the outline of the hex tile, purple is the laser path.

Can't wait to see some samples! 

In last night's session my poor "pointy stick man" was almost a goner. And I wasn't even "at the table" (we are using Foundry) to see it! I stepped outside to check on something in the woods and came back to my poor dude with only 3hp left. 

I'm planning on making a small version of the mapping board, hopefully this weekend, using 1x12 stock (11.25" wide), so it will only be 10x11 hexes.  It should be a quick cut, and quick laser.  Then I will give it to my buddy for him and his daughter to use in actual gaming and see how well it works in play.

You could maybe capture some Starfinder players by doing a double-sided board with hexes on one and squares on the other. Some appropriately themed spaceships engraved around the rim probably wouldn't hurt either. 

You are talking about some people like my former boss who spent $8k on a custom gaming table so price might not be too much of a concern 

well, I do have the square designed as well, and yes, designed to be on the flip side of the hexes...... thus the reason I said 1/2" MDF, 1/4" would get wobbly I think.  Hard board would be a possibility, but that stuff is pretty thin.

as for custom designs lasered in, always as an extra-cost item!

my daughter just this week got a cricut, so stickers is also a possibility.

Maybe some nice mahogany or something pretty as a boarder with the game board sandwiched in between.