Dice Cell Trays

I needed dice cell trays for SoN games. I bought a load from War Bases (not enough) and they are great. However, I needed a lot and, rather than double the price by sticking two together, I decided to make them deeper by cutting out lots of platforms, made from mounting board, with the centres cut out, just wider than the cells but not wider than the cell walls. As it turned out, a 1mm tolerance was more than sufficient. Once cut out, I chamfered the edges so that, when textured, the platform was lost / disguised. It was all a bit tedious for the money saved but, it worked very well.

Cells, on platforms, on bases. And the finished test cell - should of stopped with that one.
Why didn't I just buy double the  cells, to save time and pain, I ask you?
A Yorkshireman's stingy, bloody mindedness, that's why!

Humpback bridges, cheap and cheerful.

 

Having made about seventeen feet of stream some time ago I needed some bridges. I decided on three. They needed to be small, so simple humpbacked bridges seemed the best route. I chose to go simple. I chose to go cheap. I chose to play a trick. Then I built them, fell ill and didn't post this as originally intended - fortunately I remembered to take the memory card out of my camera so that I didn't accidentally erase the pictures; erasing pictures on the camera card is something I do regularly to speed up the find and download process.

You don't need many materials or tools to make these things, and those materials you will need are useful for many other things - so no pointlessly wasted materials left over. Cheap as chips - £0.50 each, tops.

Biggest cost can be seen here, 5mm foam board. But, it has so many uses that you'll use what you don't use on this job for others - zero waste here.

Having marked out the sides of the bridge using a set square, ruler and a compass onto 5mm foam board I cut the shapes out using a surgical scalpel with a 10A blade. 

Note that the bridge was deeper than this when it was drawn: It's had about 5mm cut off the bottom; that's where the compass point at the centre of the circles was located. The arch isn't quite a whole semicircle.

My stubby handled size 10 scalpel is probably the most used tool I own - I use it for just about everything because the blades are much cheaper than craft blades, and if you mutter to yourself whilst you work, it's funny to say "Scalpel, nurse." once in a while.

If you are watching carefully you will have noticed the trick I'm about to pull already. Can you see it yet?

Edit for RichardL: Easier said than done now they are made but, approx dimensions are: Length 120mm. Height 40mm. The lower arch at waterline is 40mm across. The arch corresponds to the width of my stream and it is that wide for no other reason. Just do what feels right for the water you want to cross. If the river is much wider you may need two or more arches like this one I made some time ago.

I didn't throw away the angles from the top of the bridge walls as these will be used....

...to make the ramps that will support the roadway. 

The trick is obvious now, isn't it?

Whilst the roadway support ramps were drying, I cut out my 2mm MDF bases to match my stream basing. 

This is another outlay similar to the foam board but, again MDF is such a useful thing to have around the place.

BTW: To buy quite small pieces of 2mm MDF look up picture framing supplies - it's used for backing pictures.

I cut the excess off from the road ramps and now the basic structural work is done.

Got the conceit I'm planning. Surely you see the trick now?

I added my stream texture, and two strips of foam board to the basing. These foam board pieces will stiffen the bottom of the lower arch and keep its sides straight at water level. (See second picture down: That picture shows how these strips work).

You can see that I do my footprint plans bold, using a fine felt tipped pen. The "52mm" is to remind me how wide to cut my roadway. 

Also note that before I did the water texture I masked off the areas where the bridge will sit. This needs to be flat.

The lower arches, made from thin card. I actually used cartridge paper in this case but, anything from old Christmas cards to cornflake packet is about right. 

The pins just hold everything in place whilst the glue dries.

Now here is the big fudge: The conceit that makes these bridges work. 

The problem with wargame bridges is that they usually have to go over water that is above ground level. Obviously, 'in the wild' streams flow a few feet below the level of the surrounding ground. This means that the arches of a wargame bridge, to look right as arches, actually have to be higher above ground level than they should be. This causes a problem for the modeller. Either he has to have bridges with an incredibly steep roadway or he has to make bridges overly long to make the road gradient less steep.

I have done neither. My conceit is to lay the roadway directly over the lower arch, thus reducing the overall height of the roadway by 6mm - 7mm. Thus, the bridge can be short and the road gradient shallow. But, the level of the road is lower than the stone arch on the outer wall of the bridge that is supposed to support it. That's the trick! The eye will be tricked by not being able to see both the outer arch and the roadway at the same time. It's so simple, it's downright stupid.

Because I was using cartridge paper I did my roadway three layers thick, one applied after the other. If I had used Christmas cards, two layers would have sufficed. The last layer went over the base edge and was trimmed flush when dry - only do this with the last layer; cut the other layers shorter, as in the picture above.

After doing the brickwork using thin balsa wood (bricks and arch-work) or mounting card (top stones on the walls), and texturing it and painting it with household acrylics (Dulux emulsion paint), I coated the roadway with a strong mix of plaster filler and PVA / water (1:1).

I painted the road, adding a few rocks and some 'verge' to the inner surfaces, and based and painted the stream to blend into my streams.

Here the conceit of the roadway is explained. The eye doesn't see the relative heights of the arch and the road because it can't see where they join. It is tricked completely.

One last point. Most humpbacked bridges have a splayed entrance, the roadway being wider at the entrance to the bridge and narrower in the middle. This is actually very difficult to do and causes problems when it comes to cutting the shape of the roadway. To make things simple for myself, I chose to ignore this facet of a humpbacked bridge completely: K.I.S.S.

Stoney banked stream, step by step.

 

This stream was made for grid based games using To the Strongest rules so the shape and size of things was determined by the grid in this case. However, basic principles apply, etc.

Marking out the sections is very important and I used several pieces of kit to accomplish this.

The ruler and pencil are the only essential tools required but, everything else makes the job easier. The set square speeds up the process and obviously allows true right angles to be marked. The compasses are all pre-set at the three radius required to mark out the turn sections, again I'm using three to speed up the process. I tend to use a lot of coloured pens to mark things out so that when I'm cutting I cut along the right lines - I've made mistakes often enough to know that this is worth while.

This is a two foot by three foot piece of MDF, 2mm thick. 

It's been marked out with all of the sections I think I might need. Twenty two straights; ten 90 degree bends; three half length ends; two stream sources; one T junction for doing a fork / tributary.

The important measurement for the bends was the centre line because each bend precisely covers the corner and half a side's length of a square - being a bear of little brain I even marked this out once to make sure (bend section top right). The straight sections are 200mm long - a square's side.

Red lines are the straight cuts which I'll make with a Stanley knife and a steel rule. Short of buying a laser cutter, I think this is the best way to cut straight lines through 2mm MDF. A couple of gentle guiding strokes to start, followed by three or four heavy strokes is usually enough to get through it.

The black lines are where I'll cut with a coping or fret saw. Note that I have drawn the wavy black lines so that one cut makes two wavy banks. For cutting wavy lines, a coping saw is an essential tool; the fret saw is a nice to have for particularly 'deep into the sheet' cuts, and it rarely sees the light of day.

The light blue line is a guide line for the rivers surface, and in this case was probably superfluous.

After cutting everything out, I chamfered the bank edges with a Stanley knife and then gave everything a good sanding with 180 grade glass paper.

The turns are set at 90 degrees because I'm primarily making the streams for To the Strongest games, where the streams run down the lines of the grid squares - i.e. between the squares.

Immediately after this was done I undercoated both sides of the sections with two coats of water based primer undercoat. Again, I'm not sure this was entirely necessary but it would be a shame if the sections ever got wet at some point in the future and warped. It's worth noting that the light blue pen line came through the undercoat.

Next thing was to create the water's surface.

I made this simple tool to do this out of old paint brushes, a piece of card (to keep them flat) and masking tape. I used paint brushes because of the nicely rounded, hard, smooth handle ends. 

This will be used to make lots of ripples, set at 90 degrees to the 'flow'. This is something that is counter intuitive but, when you look at the ripples in fast shallow streams this is the way the ripples run. So often I see wargame streams with ripples running with the current; I made them that way myself before taking time to look at ripples properly.

This picture shows why I made the new streams now. Whilst clearing out some cupboards and drawers a couple of weeks ago I came across two match pots (blue and grey) of paint that had become almost too thick to use. I mixed them together and got this very gooey mess. It's so thick it retains the shape you leave it in after mixing.

I put the paint onto the sections with the hog hair brush you can see in the previous shot. It wasn't put on that thick, certainly less than 1mm thick overall, then I textured the surface with the 'paint brush tool', washing the end of the tool (after doing each section) by dipping it into a jam jar of water and rubbing it with a big paint brush (that's why the lower masking tape has a blue hue).

I added model railway 'cork boulders' to half of the straight sections and to a few of the turns.

This shot shows how I did the surface more clearly. You can see I used short strokes rather than simply pulling the tool all the way across the stream. After doing the ripples I broke them up further with a stabbing motion, with the tool set at the direction of the ripples.

This shot also shows the base emulsion paint colour (left over from painting my teenage sons bedroom walls) that I used to paint the rivers - in reality it's even darker than it looks in this shot. 

This was then dry brushed with various shades of blue. In fact they looked very blue at this point - I know what I'm doing, I have a trick up my sleeve.

After dry brushing, I added the banks. This was simply done by sticking cork boulders, cat litter and sand to the edges of the river with PVA. 

Note that I glued the boulders on first, then when dry, I painted a good thickness of PVA along the whole bank onto which I sprinkled cat litter, immediately followed by sand, followed by sand again a few minutes later.

Two things about the cat litter. Firstly this is the man made dust free pink stuff sold by Tesco. It doesn't disintegrate, or go mushy when wet. Secondly, I sprinkled it on holding the section at an angle so that a good pebbly bank was created at the water's edge.

When it was dry I painted the banks with Dulux Wholemeal Honey 1. This was then ink washed with diluted (4:1) burnt umber acrylic ink. When dry the banks and river rocks were dry brushed with sandier colours, then I did a final whip round picking out the edges of the big rocks and bigger stones - painting them properly. This final step might sound like overkill for terrain but it makes a big difference, and it's not like painting eyes; rough and ready highlighting is all that is required, 30 seconds a section tops.

Trick time. After the banks were painted it was time to tone down the blue into the green spectrum (I think) by making the blue more of a dark aquamarine. This is done by mixing medium oak wood stain with yacht varnish. I mixed mine in a jam jar, about 20mm in the bottom of the jar with a tea spoon of stain. I actually put a label on the jam jar with the varnish level drawn on so I can repeat the mix in the future.

This was painted on quite thickly. You'll note it slightly, and nicely, darkened the bottom of the bank too. When this was dry I dotted some flecks of white 'foam' here and there with white enamel paint.

Last job, once the varnish was fully dry, was to add a small amount of green flock.

A shot of the stream taken from an angle that catches and reflects the light. 

I'm pleased with how this came out: So pleased I'm planning on adding some less angular bends so that I can use it for games not based on a grid - like Peninsular and Italian Wars games where a stony banked stream might work quite well.

EDIT: I've done the extra bits of stream now too: Three more 10cm (half sections) sections, four 5cm (quarter) sections, eight 45 degree bends and four 22.5 degree bends. The bends are just simple short arcs. So now I can use this stream for just about everything. 

One thing that often happens with light pieces of terrain is that they 'slip about' on the table when jogged whilst moving troops about. I've cured this by joining the sections together with a short piece of masking tape on the underside of each section's ends: Invisible, and works a treat.

Off cuts and hill tiles - step by step

 If you have been following my desert terrain posts of late, you will know that I stained a large canvas play mat (cut down to 14' 4" x 6' 6" approx) and kept the off cuts for one reason or another. You will also know that because the cloth shrank by 16" in length that I don't have quite as much stained off cut as I would like.

However, although I have now completely run out of stained canvas, I have managed to do my hill tiles for To the Strongest games. For those unfamiliar with To the Strongest, it is a game played out on a grid and consequently, for two reasons, I decided to go for stylised terrain based on the size and shape of the grid squares.

The first reason for my choice of hill shape was to achieve a certain sartorial elegance. The game is based on a square grid so why not embrace it. 

The second reason, and the reason my hills are so square, is down to cost. Originally I had planned to do my hills in a similar fashion but with less regularity of shape and I had planned on buying new foam insulation board to do it. However, a box of twelve one inch thick tiles two foot square is nearly £80.00 including delivery, VAT, etc. 

As I only actually needed three or four tiles this was too much, especially as I already had sufficient 'spacer sections' in my collection of under cloth hills tiles for 'green terrain' from which to make my desert hills. These sections are unpainted square edged lengths (to increase the width / length of hills) and could be easily converted into painted sections for going on top of the table for TtS desert games, whilst still maintaining their usefulness as spacers when going under a green cloth where their true identity cannot be seen. A simple case of double bubble. A side benefit of double bubble hill sections is of course storage space requirements - hills being one of those terrain features that require quite a lot of storage space.

Having decided on a basic design and working out that I had cloth for 21 squares worth of sections, I made a simple plan of what to make. I drew out the sections I would cut and shape on a piece of paper, and changed my plan after a little thought to add two one square spacers. 

Previous games had shown that two square hills were the most useful, so I planned for three. One square hills are very much stand alone pieces so I settled on three; this might prove one too many and I did consider just doing two and adding another one square spacer. I also decided to do two right angle corner section to allow for up to two right angled hills, or a horse shoe shape, or an S shape hill to be made.

On the plan, you will note the green squiggles, this was simply to check, by matching one join with another, how many tiles might be left at the end - it proved to be a maximum of one. Red ticks were done as sections were made, just to keep track.

With more cloth, I would have made four or five more hill sections, mostly open ended spacers, perhaps including a two square long open ended section, and another right angle. 

The first thing to do was cut my hill sections so that they had a slope on one side whilst being able to be flipped over to become spacer tiles.

I decided a simple step pattern was the best solution to this. This would, I hoped, give the impression of stylised cliff faces.

This was achieved by first cutting horizontally into the side of the hill to give the horizontal steps, then doing the vertical cuts to give the shape of the hill in that plane. 

I worked top to bottom, doing the first horizontal cut followed by vertical cuts, before moving down to the next horizontal cut. It's worth noting that where the first horizontal cut was quite high, it allowed an intermediate horizonalt cut to be made at certain points to increase the number of 'strata'.

Tools used were a Stanley knife for the horizontal and a scalpel for the vertical cuts. Blades were always new and replaced at regular intervals. In the whole process (start of project to finish) I used 4 Stanley blades and seven scalpel blades - most can be reused in the future where a less sharp blade is required to do a job.

The edges were now sealed with thin filler mix. Creamy texture with a 1:1 PVA water solution. This is important. Thick filler is much easier to apply onto a coated surface. 

Whilst drying, weight was applied, using a couple of glass shelves, to stop the chance of the tiles warping.

Filler was a cheap brand (2Kg for £4) and cheap PVA which I mostly buy to do sand and grit basing: It's quite runny. 

Then the thicker filler is applied to rough up the surface. I used a hog hair brush to get the effect. Again filler is mixed with a 1:1 PVA water solution. This is important as it will stop the filler chipping when in use - it's all glued together.

Warping hasn't ever proved much of an issue with this technique but, until the filler was dry I wasn't taking any chances. The tiles were stacked on a level surface under two glass shelves and weights (a few books). 

When the plaster was dry I painted the 'rock faces'. I did this as a two part operation. Firstly I did the bottom of the cliff going under half an inch onto the base to seal everything, placing the hill upside down to dry. Then I did the top half (as pictured) doing the same.

At this point, you don't need to worry about warping.

I used Dulux Wholemeal Honey #1 for this: Code 90YR 19/487

When dry I ink washed the surface with Daler Rowney Burnt Umber acrylic ink diluted 1:4 with water.

First drybrush. Done using a big (size 8) flat hog hair brush.

I used Dulux Wholemeal Honey #2 for this: Code 90YR 34/468

Followed by a second and third highlight using a Magnolia, first mixed with WH2 for the second highlight, then applied neat.

Next the top surface was applied. This would be canvas offcuts stained when the cloth was done. A thin coat of PVA was applied to the top surface of the tile and also to the leading edges of the fabric. 

The latter was done to seal the fabric to make the edge easier to cut later, and also because otherwise the fabric would soak up all of the glue applied to the tile and reduce the glue's sticking potential. 

Note the 6B pencil used to stencil trace the hill edge to help direct where to add glue to the fabric. You don't get to use a 6B pencil very much but I'm glad I had one kicking about for this job. 

Up until this point everything was straight forward and quick. Now the hassle began. I had to cut off the excess canvas from around the edge of the hill. For this I used a scalpel.

This was also where my knowledge of the finished result was lacking. It was a harder job than I had imagined, mostly trying to hold the hill in a position where I could see what I was doing - something I found best achieved by holding the hill edge on between my knees - and the cut wasn't as neat as I was hoping.

Also, because the stain hadn't evenly penetrated the cloth, the fabric had a distinct pale edge. 

Consequently, I decided to stylise the hill.

First I sealed the top edge of the canvas by painting a quarter inch line of PVA around the cliff edge to stop leaching before adding a dark edge with ink (diluted 1:1). This new clean edge line hides a multitude of sins, and possibly because the ink was used elsewhere in both processing the cliff faces and the cloth, it somehow blends in with the whole effect. 

One possible combination of 21 squares of hill sections.

And slightly less hills in a game set up.

Please ignore the tall 'stalks' in the woods. They are commercially available plastic palm trees currently being made up and finished off with various painting techniques to make them look a little less like plastic (hopefully).

Into the blue - a new playing surface for gaming things arid.

 I've been wanting to change my 'arid / desert' terrain playing surface for quite some time and I've toyed with several ideas including simply purchasing a ready made play mat.

My reasons for wanting a change are that firstly, my current terrain tiles (the painted backs of terrain tiles by TSS, pictured above) are very old and have largely seen better days: They are dinted beyond belief, several have had large chunks polystyrene taken out of their edges and corners, and the cat has used several as scratching posts. Secondly, they simply take up too much storage space: Storage space I sorely need for other bulky stuff like hills, so I can clear a cupboard for new buildings, new trees and such like.

The solution has always been obvious. A cloth, suitably coloured, that can be kept permanently of my table. I did look into this and made some serious enquiries about the cost of professionally made cloths, of one kind or another, 5 meters in length. As you can imagine the quotes were not cheap; they were not impossible prices (£170 - £350) but, I figured I could probably make my own for £60 - £80.

But, how? What materials would I need? A cloth, obviously, but what kind of cloth. How would I colour it? These were questions that I've been pondering for over a year or two. 

Then a couple of months ago I stumbled on a blog post about someone buying a new professionally made desert cloth to replace a home made one. I'm afraid I can't give you a link because I've forgotten who's blog it was but there was a comment he made that stuck with me and set this particular ball rolling. In the blog post the author admitted that although he liked his new cloth, he still preferred the one he'd made by staining a plain cloth with tea and coffee.

I'd looked into cloth for some time and decided that canvas was probably my best bet.

Importantly, canvas comes in widths of over 2 meters (the choice of material in wide widths is limited), it is made from a natural fibre (cotton) so it takes stains and dyes readily enough, it is hard wearing and it's relatively cheap. 

I went on line to Forrest Fabrics and, after seeking advice on which weight to buy on LAF (thanks Atheling), I purchased 5 meters of 12oz canvas 2.18 meters wide. It cost, all in, £49.50. I also bought (from elsewhere) a large plastic drop cloth to go over my table to protect it whilst work was in progress (£1.50).

I have to tell you now, at the point this picture was taken, I didn't have a clue if this would work, or if it did, how well. I had a plan and some contingency ideas, nothing more.

First up, I wet the cloth with water with a small amount of detergent mixed in to break the water's surface tension so that it would penetrate the fabric more easily.

Here you can see the plastic sheet protecting the table from the liquid deluge that's about to happen; at the far end of the table my main implement of destruction - a big wall paper brush.

The stain. Tea, About two litres of the stuff made with four tea bags, left to stew until the tea was cold.

It went onto the wet cloth. It worked to some extent but it was very pale. I was already having doubts about the tea. 

How many applications would it take?

Time to start some dark patches, put on whilst the cloth was sill wet. These were made with instant coffee (half a litre made with four big heaped teaspoons of coffee), applied with a one inch paint brush. I took care to blur the edges well.

Another batch of tea but things aren't darkening as I'd hoped.

Time to bring out the big guns. 1.5 litres of tea with 0.5 litres of strong instant coffee mixed in. 

The place is beginning to smell like Starbucks and the cloth is soaking.

This picture accurately shows the true colour of the cloth at this point - insipid is a good word to describe it.

Also, strange dark grey spots are beginning to appear in a couple of places and I'm starting to get worried.

The next morning and the cloth is almost dry. The grey spots have gone but the cloth looks very pale.

Contingency plan number 1: I put on the another tea and coffee mix then I mixed a weak solution artists burnt umber acrylic ink 1:10.

I paint the ink, in patches, onto the cloth, then flick a slightly stronger solution of maybe 1:7 onto the wet cloth in various actions from various directions. 

It's not looking good. I've overdone it and I can't go back and change it. 

Furthermore, I suddenly realise that the cloth has shrunk by nearly 400 mm lengthways. It hasn't shrunk at all in width. I was expecting to lose a little but, not 400mm!

I'm confused and slightly depressed. I might have completely cocked this up and be buying emulsion paint to rectify the situation with a new approach.

I decide go for a break to let the cloth dry a bit. It's nowhere near as wet as it was the day before so it should dry quicker, and I've set an electric fan to assist in the drying process.

When I come back, the ink has leached into the wet cloth, and the patterns and the colour are not as bad. It's just that the lighter patches between the ink patches are not dark enough. The accompanying photo is taken at this time.

Question: How much more tea and coffee is this thing going to need? I'm not quite as depressed about the way the cloth is turning out as I was but, I'm still not very hopeful. I'll give it one more day.

Several hours later, just before bed time, the cloth isn't dry but, it's just damp. Before I pack it in for another day I add one last application of tea and coffee mix.

The next morning - would you Adam and Eve it! The cloth didn't look like this last night. It didn't look at all like this.

The cloth is dry. It looks a bit like desert. Hell, it looks quite a lot like desert. 

The colour has completely changed. Did it hit critical mass? Did the wargaming fairies stop by? I don't have a clue why it suddenly changed but it has; I'm happy again. 

I'd actually made up another coffee and tea stain to cool overnight, and I'm not going to need it. 

Bloody amazed, absolutely bloody amazed!

More than happy with the colour I trimmed the cloth to size. I took care to PVA the 'cut line' before I cut it. This will stop the cloth fraying. 

This wasn't my idea. Along the length edges of the cloth this had been done by the manufacturer - good idea, so I nicked it. Note the edge shown is the width edge that hasn't had a PVA treatment: See how it is fraying badly, this shouldn't happen now

I have several uses for the off cuts. This is the reason I stained all of the extra cloth rather than cutting it first. Their use will become known to you over the next week or two - one of the uses is in this post.

I now ironed the cloth - what a pain in the bum that was. I didn't get rid of all of the creases, several of which had been caused when the cloth was rolled for dispatch by Forrest Fabrics. The worst one is pictured. 

Funnily enough, the crease down the centre of the cloth was the one I most worried about (the cloth had been folded in half before it was rolled) and it has been almost entirely ironed out. Perhaps the other creases will disappear over time.

Although the stain has permeated the cloth to some degree, most of the stain has been caught in the surface layers. The contrast is striking considering how utterly wet the cloth was at times.

Cloth with a bit of terrain on it. This gives a fairly good impression of the shade. 

I'm as pleased as punch with the way this has come out. I didn't know what to expect, but yesterday, this wasn't it.

Off cuts, heavily darkened in patches with coffee and diluted ink. 

You can see I'm PVA-ing where the cut lines will be to stop fraying. 

Just after doing this, I decided to go over the PVA 'edge' with burnt umber ink diluted 1:2. Again, I wasn't sure how this would look but, I'm feeling lucky at this point.

They are rough terrain area grid pieces for games using To the Strongest. I've made eleven: Funny number but there isn't going to be a scrap of spare. The cloth shrinking as much as it did has severely lessened the amount of off cut cloth available (I lost 18 pieces like this). 

I wasn't completely shocked by the shrinkage because I had been warned that canvas does shrink but, somehow I thought cold liquid wouldn't cause as much shrinkage as it did.

The actual terrain pieces (in this case rocks and bushes) can be moved when troops enter these areas, even to areas that are not rough, and you won't forget which squares are actually rough.

My terrain for TtS is going to be very stylised, I'm going to fully embrace the grid and this will involve the use of more canvas off cuts. That will be my next post, as the hills for TtS games are work in progress.

You might also note the cross hairs, spaced at 200 mm and marking the intersections of the squared grid used by TtS. They are pure burnt umber ink applied with a fine brush. 

When I started this experiment I had no idea where it would end up and half expected that I'd end up painting the cloth with emulsion paints. As it is, I'm very happy with the colours that tea, coffee and 15ml of acrylic ink has produced. For the price of a dozen tea bags and the same number of tea spoons of instant coffee, plus half a bottle of ink, I've coloured over ten square meters of fabric. The total cost of a cloth to cover a 15' x 6' table was in the order of £54.50 (plus the hidden costs of electric, etc.), all in.

Edit: Suddenly remembered this piece of advice from Martin S., erstwhile of Vexillia, on LAF: Is this what happened?

"James a word of advice if you are using real tea and coffee.  Don't use them fresh! 

The polyphenols, in tea especially, are very reactive and that's why the tea darkens with brewing.  It will continue for some time after it's cooled down. 

For control, far better to make a brew, and leave it overnight and dilute it to the shade you want. You don't want the tea stain darkening whilst on the canvas.

It's amazing what you learn from a career in laundry detergents!"