UPDATE #4 2025/10/07
It is now nearly (3) weeks past Cleveland Gaming Classic 2025 and we had a successful run of the Great Lakes Battalion booth walls! Here is a pickup updated of what was done up to CGC to get the walls complete for display.
Where did we leave off?
Painting - The last build day was August 23rd and the list was not completed. We had brought all walls out of hybernation, and painted them with the
DIY Faux Concrete Finish Wall Using Ordinary Paint method. After the foux concrete was made,
LadyRedCos and
Negativecacti grabbed a black and grey paint that we mixed for the lower brick portions. We decided as a group to no longer use fake brick panneling and instead paint the brick pattern.
As the walls were being painted,
Wayward Flood and
billeybob250 worked on the support trays. These trays are meant to hold a cinder block between the angle. No specific measurements were used, so long as they held a block and the block above the support bottom board.
What happened between 08/23/2025 to up to CGC?
-Brick Pattern Lines
LadyRed and I took a mixture of more black than gray and began to paint the lines tracing out the brick pattern. This method would also be used to create gap lines between each wall. The side lines helped later during setup to hide the actual gaps between the walls if any.
-Wall Mockup Test
We setup the walls and from here on out until 09/11/2025 I was losing my mind. We set the walls up, and it brought every frame squareness to plywood squareness issue into view and it caused my mind to short circuit. Simply put, two walls were dissassembled, middle board of the frame removed, nailed in one corner of the plywood square to the frame, then did the opposite corner, having someone hold the frame square while another nailed. This person for me was
N8TEBB, sometimes you stare at a problem too long that a fresh set of eyes on a problem can help immensely. That night we got both of the walls assembled again, put them in place, and clamped them together.
-Final Week Before Showtime
Through bolt holes were drilled between the walls. These bolt holes showed the walls to be dang near level in my Garage #4 however on site, the walls needed to be lifted x amount with a shim or two put below to allow the holes to lineup. Unfortunately without going through every single wall for squareness before the event, this was unavoidable but it also wasn't the end of the world to do.
I went through and cut down the support beams to only extend upward past the middle beam 6".
Short blocks were made to put on the corner of the half width walls for a about 10" board to mount to, to connect the half walls to the full walls.
Lastly, the morning of the con, we took all the brackets off of the walls and attached them to short blocks that were then through bolted to the middle frame board. This allowed us to remove the brackets for transport and was a fantastic idea spur of the moment.
-Final Thoughts
marinesniper provided some awesome Live Fire signage and
Negativecacti hung up his sleeping spartan poster along with a few others from C2E2 this year provided by Midwest staff.
I'm debating making a cleaner thread or post in the future, like in the Great Lakes Battalion forum area.
We did the thing, made the booth walls, and had a great collaboration throughout the area to give CGC 2025 one hell of a presence. Great job all around!
Lets not forget about the future and improvements for the booth! (Changing Room / Storage, In game doors, Cameras, Signs, dressings, etc...)
