Wood & Leather Dungeon Masters Screen

This project is to make a Wood & Leather Dungeon Masters Screen. It's held together with Chicago screws (book binding screws) and is a good exercise in leather work, and makes a really cool screen which you can adapt into something really unique.

Materials:

• 3" wide leather strip, at least 42" long (I got mine from Ebay)

• wooden placemats, 9" x 12" (I got mine from Dunelm)

• 36 chicago screws, long enough to not quite go all the way through the thickness of the leather + the wood. Mine are 10mm.

• Card or paper, for the template

• a pen and a pencil (pencil doesn't mark leather very well).

Tools:

• a power drill, plus drill bits

• a sharp hobby knife

• a cutting mat

• a sacrificial board, for drilling into

• 2 sponges for applying water & leather cleaner

• leather cleaner

• Leather Chamfering Tool (you can use a hobby knife, but the tool is better)

• Rotary Leather Edging Tool

• screwdriver for Chicago Screws (use the right one or risk shredding the heads)

• Threadlock, to keep the screws together (not photographed)

First carefully trim the rubber feet off the place mats using the hobby knife - cut away from yourself, and do it slowly - you don't want to gouge the wood. Keep tabs on which side of the mat these came off of - this is the side you'll put the leather, so it'll cover all but 4 of the sticky spots, making it easier to clean them up.

I have found that a gap of 1.5" is about right between the mats, giving enough leather to flex properly and for the screen to fold up properly. I cut the leather to 7" long strips, so there's plenty of space for shaping and the screws.

Cut your first strip and size it up on your boards before you cut them all - you can always trim shorter, but you can't cut it longer!

Once you're happy with the length, cut all 6 to length.

Then put them on the board and make sure they are the same width as the boards. Mine were too big, so I trimmed the middle one down to make them fit properly.

At the end of this step you should have 6 pieces of leather, in two groups of 3, which combine to make the same width as the boards.

Work out what shape you want to create, ensuring there's space for 3 screws on each piece of leather, and then make a card template. Card is better as it holds its shape when you trace around it; paper tends to flex, and is too thin to hold the pen in place.

I'm moderately new to Leatherworking but this process works well for me.

First chamfer the edges with the leather chamfering tool, or with the hobby knife if you don't have one. You're only looking to remove 1mm at most from the corners. The chamfering tool is self-regulating, the hobby knife is much trickier, and you'll be more prone to slipping and cutting too much - take it slow, if you're getting impatient then have a break - don't rush this or you could ruin your leather pieces and have to start them again!

Then use a rotary tool on them. I started with a cheap tool from lidl, which burnt out after one piece of leather. The drill was better anyway - slower, but much torquier and easier to keep still on the bench as you work.

Keep the leather the same way around as you work - always have the same side pointing towards the drill. The rotary tool pushs the leather down in one direction, if you use it the other way, it'll undo all its hard work.

First wet the edges with water and smooth them on the tool. Then, wet them with leather cleaner and do it again. This should give a smooth, shiny finish.

Put them all on the wood and see how it looks. Then work out where your holes are going - I mocked it up on a template first, then marked the hole locations on the leather. It's important to get these all lined up nicely, to make the final piece look its best.

I went for 10mm from the edge of the wood, and 40mm from the edge for the central one. I kept these positions consistent, to make all the screws line up.

Dril la test hole in a piece of scrap leather, and see if the female half of the screws fits into it snugly. I needed 5.5mm for my 5mm screws, because the leather stretches around the drill bit. Drill the holes in the leather at a high speed, so it doesn't stretch and twist the leather around the hole - a faster drill will cut rather than stretch.

Now you need to mark up the 1.5" wide gap on the back of the leather strips. This will guide you in marking the holes in the wood, and shouldn't be visible when the final screen is made.

Then you need to position the leather, face-down, on top of the mats, also face down - so the mats will have the sticky-pad side down (from where you removed the non-slip feet) and the leather will be face-sown on top of them.

This means that, when you drill the holes, you can put the leather under the board and it will all be the right way around!

Mark the holes, lining the leather up with the line you've drawn, and try to put a small dent in the wood with the pen as you mark the hole positions, to help guide the drill.

Drill the holes and screw on the leather, and you've half a hinge made.

Mark up the positions of the holes on the next piece - aligning it with the lines you drew - and drill them out. screw the leather on, and the hinge is complete.

When screwing the leather on, I recommend using threadlock in the screws, so they don't work themselves loose over time.

Repeat the process to add a second hinge & third panel, and make sure it sill closes.

With that, the Dungeon Masters Screen is complete! If you used steel screws, like I did, you can fix notes to the back of the screen using magnets. The wooden mats are already smoothly finished on the edges, and it all conspires to make quite an awesome DM screen.

Thankyou for reading ! This is my First Instructable, and I am entering it into the Role Playing Game competition - so if you like it, please vote for it!