Completed Catan Board

[julybighouse]

So I’ve posted some things about my Catan Board over here on this thread. My Catan Board So Far

My Parents (and my whole family) have really been obsessed with Catan for many years. Their set has gotten a TON of use and is really starting to show it’s use. I had decided almost immediately after purchasing the GF over 2 years ago that I wanted to make this for them.

I started off with the Glowforge Catan for the pieces and Made many changes and had to make several other tiles. I made the Basic Catan Set, 5-6 player basic expansion, and SeaFarers expansion. Most of the wood I had to cut to size, thickness, and prepare the wood before I lasered it. LOTS of work preparing the wood, preparing the many files, and a large labor of love.

I’ll let the pictures do more of the talking. This really came out beautifully.

Wood was made from Mahogany Wood.

Brick was made from Bloodwood

Sheep was made from Hickory

Wheat was made from Yellowheart

Ore was made from Walnut

Gold was made from Walnut and inlaid with 1/16th gold/black acrylic (thanks @smcgathyfay!)

Desert was made from Pine

Sea was made from Curly Maple

Fishing Hole (Curly Maple), Fish, Fish Chevron (Purpleheart)

Number Pieces was the only part made with , Maple Plywood

The holes in the resource tiles was only engraved to allow the number pieces to fit, and be proud of the surface so you can remove them easily.

Boarders made from Curly Maple, and twice as thick as the resource tiles so that it will accommodate the tile + felt.

FINALLY, to hold all of this in I made a box to carry it all in.

This project took me about two years of dreaming about, 6 months of preparing files (many iterations of each resource and pieces), and 3 months of lasering and building.

I packaged each part separately and since we did family Christmas just after Thanksgiving, I sent my parents on a household scavenger hunt to find all the pieces of their gift. They Loved the entire thing.

This is the biggest reason why I haven’t posted much in the way of projects, I’ve been kind of tied up with this one for the past few months.

[AhnoldZ]

Pretty Awesome!

[PrintToLaser]

Absolutely Awesome!
Original game designers eat your hearts out. Man, that case sets that build apart.

[cdoug]

So Inspiring!! Looks absolutely AMAZING!

[rhenley]

Nicely done! I love that box!

[bdm]

Exceptional… that is really an incredible job.
Worthy of praise!

[jbmanning5]

I’ve never played the game but those are gorgeous. I imagine the wood gives a great tactile sensation and makes playing even more enjoyable.

[HalWebGuy]

Gorgeous. But play Terra Mystica and it’s hard to go back to Catan

[smcgathyfay]

Wowzers!!! That came out amazing…and that case!!
Much dedication, time, and effort. You crafted something truly spectacular!!

[joshmillard]

Good golly, that’s a nice pile of work.

[mad_macs]

I have been waiting on the arrival of the official Catan board in the Glowforge Store, since as I understood it we were supposed to have access to the projects in the video. @dan any progress on that front?

[markwal]

You’re probably aware already, but just in case others drop by, the update only said “most” and “try” to get Catan. Though it did say “slowly over the next year”.

My guess is they’ll release it just after I cut mine out.

@dan

We plan to release most of those designs for the catalog slowly over the course of the coming year. When we do, we’re going to give you every design from the video that’s in the catalog, for free. Yes, even the ginormous dollhouse and dual counter-rotating rubberband gatling gun drone. We’re even going to try and get the license for the Catan board for everyone.

[cynd11]

This is jaw-droppingly amazing! So much loving detail put into all of this. I love that you sent them on a scavenger hunt for the pieces—it just draws out the delight of discovery.

[Jules]

Yep, the care and love that went into the creation of that set makes it all worthwhile. Just gorgeous!

[mad_macs]

If they are having an issue licensing it from the original artist they could hire another.

I’m still waiting to print out a set for an October 2015 wedding present.

[Alestra]

That is really amazing! I can only imagine how wonderful it smelled while making it too! Did you use contact paper on the wood? What was the biggest challenge while lasering?

Beautiful and awesome work!

[julybighouse]

It was kind of surreal to actually play a game with these pieces. It’s one thing to stare at them for months as they take shape and you take care of each one. And then to finally play a game on it? Wow.

[julybighouse]

It was really fun to watch them figure out what it was. The one thing not shown here are three bags made with Black micro-suede. One big one to hold the pieces (to get random placements) and two small ones to hold the numbers and the fish pieces. For the first three or so gifts (bags and 2 or 3 resource tiles) they thought I was giving them a new game. Once they figured out that it was a “delux” Catan game their eyes bugged out and they got even more excited to find the pieces. When the box came out my mom had tears in her eyes. They had no clue that I was making this. So. worth. it.

[ESteele]

A single tear from Mom makes all the time and effort more than worth it.

[julybighouse]

When I lasered the pieces I used Masking Tape to Mask the pieces (I have the 6 inch wide stuff).

Some of the biggest challenge on making the resource tiles was my lack of native artistic skill, and the tediousness of changing and modifying resource tiles. For instance, the GF provided artwork has “holes” about .75 inches in diameter. I needed the holes to be 1 inch diameter to fit the number tokens that I had made (Lots of experiments to figure out that 1 inch tokens would be the easiest to read from a normal playing distance). So I had to go in and edit EVERY node that was in the space, partially because I was new to inkscape and didn’t know any other tricks, and partially because I was fine with tedious as long as it got the job done (labor of love makes those things less burdensome). I also made the initial mistake of making the borders with the “hooks” in it, which is fine if you are only doing the Basic Catan board or even Cities and Knights edition. But once you get into SeaFarers edition, you have to be able to flip the boarders over to show only a water border instead of a border with a shore and port. The hooks were then going in a different direction and I had to eventually cut them off. But that was an earlier edition and I ended up completely redoing the borders (Thicker, no hooks, and clearer ports).