Ironheart Artisans paint rack

First of my post-Adepticon blog posts. I was able to attend Adepticon with Geek Nation Tours. This was a great way to see the convention with lots of special events with professional painters, pod casters, and Andy Chambers.

I'll write up a separate post about my Adepticon experience, but I will say it is a great small convention where you can spend a lot of time discussing playing with and painting toy soldiers with other players, award-winning painters, game designers, writers and all of them are really great, down-to-earth folks. Go if you can get to Chicago and enjoy.

So first thing I wanted to get to is a great paint rack by Ironheart Artisans. I was lucky enough to meet Alex, the owner and designer and got to spend a lot of time at his booth. Alex runs a small shop which is developing and growing. He works with MDF to make painting accessories and terrain and with acrylic to make custom gaming templates and wound markers. He provided Geek Nation Tours a custom 2" blast template, which I got as part of the tour, and has worked with Adepticon in previous years. Ironheart Artisans' templates and wound markers for many games, including Warhammer, Star Wars X-wing, and Warmachine. Additional gaming materials are always in development and coming soon. Alex can and has many times provided game shops with custom templates and terrain with branding as give aways and awards.

This is a four tier paint rack which can hold either paint bottle or paint pots. The overall measurements are 11.5"wx6"dx4.5"h.

Each shelf with hold either 11 paint pots or 12 paint bottles. The rack is made from MDF which is laser-cut and assembles quickly. Each of the pieces was completely cut and punched, so there were no worries about partial cuts or having to sand/file anything.

Since this was my first go, I dry fit the pieces, but to save you time just follow this plan. Start by laying out your shelf components. You will notice that each of the face pieces has two cuts. This will allow for just about a 1" well on each shelf. The slot on the short side goes toward the bottom.

Start by assembling the each rise with each run. Don't worry you can't get this part wrong. As you can see, you can flip the pieces end over end to get them correct. Now assemble each of the shelves together.

After the shelves are together insert the support pieces. There are two with notches cut for each shelf to fit snuggly. Start by fitting the top section, then the bottom section. Once these are fit, the middle will fit a little more easily.

Once these supports are in, it is time to add the two end caps. Please note that I have not glued anything to this point. If you do want to permanently assembly, the next steps will be where you will start to glue. You don't have to glue and the rack is quite stable. This will allow you to disassemble and store if necessary.

Start with either end and again, fit the top and bottom then fit the middle sections. If you are to glue, I used Krazy Glue bit anything similar or wood glue would work. The cure time for wood glue is longer and I find a little messier. Apply the glue on the long, burned sections where the MDF connects. Repeat for the other side.

Only one section left, the rear. For this, again apply the glue to the long, burned sections where the two pieces of MDF will connect. For this, I fit one side then moving along the top fit to the top shelf. Once that was done, I fit the opposite side. Then work the middle pieces to complete. All together, this assembly took me 15-20 minutes as I took pictures and watch the second half of the Maryland Terrapins/Duke Sweet 16 game.

I know I am looking forward to this helping me organize my paints in my gaming table. I look forward to many more pieces from my friends at Ironheart Artisans. Give them a look, they also do acrylic templates, wound markers, and terrain pieces as well.

Thanks,
Chris