I painted the inside panel of the case in off-white emulsion. I used a bit of crackle glaze to “age” the panel, but not too much as the transfers I have planned for the actual turn and reroll tracks, and scatter diagram, are quite ornate themselves. After the paint dried I hot glued magnets in place, then hot glued strips of foam that I cut to about 20mm x 7mm. The magnets are 5mm so the foam needs to be slightly thicker, so the foam is compressed when the case is closed, leaving as seamless a gap as possible. In retrospect, I’d have gone for even thicker foam as the compression isn’t quite to the point where the gap is completely seamless.
I was almost caught out by the magnets, in that two need to go on with opposite polarity to the others. Always triple check your polarities whenever magnetising!
I then worked round the edges pulling the leather coating over the foam strips and using a staple gun to fix it in place.
I now need to put transfers on the panel and I’m planning on using earth and flock to cover the staples and tie the panel visually with the pitch during play. With the panel in place, our case is complete, and actually looks better than I thought it would. At some stage when I was messily gluing fake leather to the case with superglue I’d started to think it would never look very professional. But, it looks okay… from a distance… with the lights turned down. Almost like a bizarre oversized briefcase.
