Custom Tournament Tray

I made my tournament tray a while ago but never got round to posting it, a few people have asked how I made it when I have posted my pictures of my tray at the start of tournament so I figured I would go over how I made it.

This is just me "test fitting" all the parts

It all started with the trays which I bought at my local £ shop, they were discounted "mothers day breakfast trays" being sold off after mothers day. Being cheaply made I doubted their sturdiness but decided to chance it given how cheap they were. I picked up a length of 1.25" x 1.25" wood and cut it to length to be used as the upright supports. I measured it out to make sure I would be able to fit large models on the lower layer. (I used my Stormstrider as it is the tallest model I wanted to be able to fit)

The joints of the tray looked to be just glued so I added right angle bracing to add strength to it. I drilled through the wood first (very slowly to avoid damaging the tray)

For the top layer I bolted the bracing pieces in place.

As you can see here I drew on in pencil where the supports would be located. This helped me drill in the right place when I attached the supports.

I drilled up from underneath the bottom layer through the tray and into the supports. I then secured the supports with screws

I then attached bracing right angles to the bottom layer attaching them by drilling through the tray and into the side of each support.

Finally I attached the top tray by drilling down through the tray and into the tops of each support, again fixing it into place with screws.

Here is the tray fully assembled.

Plenty of room to fit both my Stormstriders on the bottom layer.

I then turned my thoughts towards how I would decorate it, I had wanted to use some of my MK2 stat cards for a while and this seemed the ideal project for them. I just had to pick which ones I wanted to use.

I had a spare sheet of Plastic canvas or Granny grating as it is also known, so I decided to add it on to one end of the tray. I tried out attaching my PP pins to see how it would look.

The PP pins are really hard to get over here in the UK sadly... I got these ones at Smogcon 2 years ago. 

For painting I just went with a simple black undercoat and then took a grey spray paint and made it look weathered. 

I like how the pins look on my tray it gives me a good place to keep them all together. I would like to get more one day, but I'm not paying international shipping and import taxes for them...

When it came time to pick which cards I wanted to use it was a little bit tough! So many good memories using loads of models in mk2. In the end I went with most of the models I liked to use in my old Caine2 list for the top tray, and all the Trencher cards on the bottom tray.

trenchers are the models that got me into Cygnar so it seemed only fitting they got a place on the tray.

I glued them down using PVA glue (white glue) putting a sheet of cling film (Saran wrap for my American readers) over them all then weighing them all down with a pile of books so that they didn't curl up.

Once they dried I applied another layer of glue over the cards to protect them from being easily scuffed or scratched.

I love my tournament tray, it quite often gets a question or a compliment at a tournament or online when I post a picture during an event.

I saw a picture PP's Dallas shared the other day in which he had free hand painted some menoth iconography onto someones tray. This has inspired me to try the same so I might be cracking out the paints at some point in the future to give it a go on my tray!

What do you think of my tray? Would you have picked different cards to decorate it with?