Icebox!

[freetrav]

Just over a week ago, I went to a local plastics shop and commissioned an Icebox. I'd worked out a nice design, and they built it to specifications, and it came out nice - I'd hoped it would be ready yesterday, but things didn't work out that way (explanation of why in the description following the first picture below), so they called me today and I picked it up this afternoon. Pictures behind the cuts; their natural sizes are all 1280x960.

The board is constructed out of two layers of acrylic. The bottom layer is 1/4" clear acrylic, a simple sheet; the top layer is opaque black acrylic in the same thickness. The ridges between the squares are also 1/4" clear acrylic, and it's these that were the problem. Originally, it was specced out that those would be 1/4" square rod, cut to length - but the manufacturing tolerances on the rod weren't close enough for this project, and the tops of those strips would have projected above the level established by the black border. So, they took 1/4" sheet stock, and actually cut and polished strips to fit - an incredible job, and according to the gentleman that worked on it, it nearly tripled the amount of time needed to actually build the board. They stuck to their original price estimate, though, and still came in close to the lower limit of the time estimate that they originally gave me (1-2 weeks; it was betwen 8 and 9 days).

These three pics are of the board, with "masks" behind it for different games. Information about Volcano and Pach-Ice-i are available on the web at the provided links. The "masks" are printouts on 11x17 paper of playing boards for the respective games, laminated, and cut to size. Laminating four masks costs about $20 at Kinko's if you bring in pre-printed paper; if you print there (from PDF on a USB thumbdrive), figure on spending five to ten dollars additional on computer time and printing.The laminated masks can be used as boards for appropriate games even without my nice plastic custom board over them, too - but I think using them as masks for the nice board is cooler.

The box itself, overhead and side view.  Made from 1/4" clear acrylic, with a hinged lid. The inside measurements are 12 inches by 12 inches by 2 inches deep. The board's outside dimensions are 11-and-3/4 inches square, so it fits inside nicely.

The box fills nicely; the board goes on the bottom, masks lay on top of the board, the Icehouse pieces in their stash tubes go along one side, and the other side is for Other Stuff - I keep my rulebook, Hypothermia newsletters, printed rules pamphlets, and game accessories like colored stones, dice, and cards there. It all fits very neatly, as you can see. Well, I should re-take this picture at some point; I seem to have moved as I snapped the picture.