Wargaming Mat Storage Tube

thingiverse

I've recently started to do some wargaming with some friends. Takes me back to my youth and it's a wonderful creative outlet if you like painting and modelling. Interesting problem - how do you make a load of carefully painted scenery and gaming equipment portable, so you can keep it in a bag ready to go when you're in a rush and want to go after work. The gaming mat is the easy bit, you can roll it up and put it in a storage tube. You might have a cardboard one lying around, but lets say we want something that can survive a bit of rain, survive being thrown into the back of a car for a few years. A bit of 68mm downpipe is a good start for the tube. It's strong, cheap and going to last a long time: https://www.screwfix.com/p/floplast-round-downpipe-black-68mm-x-2-5m/25256 £7 for 2.5m, and it's going to give you something you can cut into 3 pieces for a 2' wide mat, as wel as a 3' (not quite enough for a 4' too). I added 1" and made it a 25" and 37" pipe. Then 2 printed tube caps. The key is to get the right fit - my printer is well calibrated, and 69mm internal diameter seems to be the magic number. I've included a test piece - print this out first and try scaling to 101%, 99% etc until you get the fit you want. Then go ahead and apply that to the tube cap. I haven't glued either end, but you could use a drop of superglue if you can't get the fit right. The backpack is this one in case anyone's interested: https://amzn.eu/d/6q4BsCe It's not quite as 'hard shell' as I was hoping, but it has a large internal space with padding, and the tripod section on the side is perfect for this storage tube.