In preperation, a few days back, I took a piece of 1/2″ OSB and cut out a shape that would exactly fit inside the “tub” when dropped in. You can see it in the background here:
It is that big piece of OSB standing vertically in the back, leaning against the wall. I had to make sure that it fit nice and snug when dropped in, so it took a few trimming cuts with the jigsaw to get everything with as little gap around the edge as possible when laid into the table. What I ended up with went from snug fitting to at most a 3/16″ gap.

I took that OSB and laid out the felt playing surface, getting it straight and centered as possible, and then folded the overhang around to the bottom and stapled. Flipped it over, cut the triangles out of the corners and made sure there was never any overlapping fabric. Cut off any excess cloth and dropped that sucker into the table. It fit like a glove. [insert witty OJ/Johnnie Cochran comment here] I cut a couple finger holes in the bottom of the table, so that if I ever want to take that layout out of the table, I can just push up from the bottom to be able to grab it.
Once the layout was in, I could put the pyramid rubber back into the ends. I decided to just tack them in with a few well placed finishing nails. You can hardly see them and they hold fine.

Then I started applying the self-stick vinyl tile to the dealer side of the inside of the craps table.

This was fairly simple and gave it a nice glossy black finish. Again, ignore the white lines in betweend tiles, as my poor photography has brought them out with a bad flash or something. In normal light you cannot see the tile seams, except at very extreme angles. I think I might go in and use a black magic marker and see if that hides those seams.

Next I think will be attempting to cover the stickman side of the inside table with a mirror. I have a cheap ($5) wall mirror that I am going to attempt to cut to fit. After that, I’ll be starting the padded rail, which will be a project in and of itslef. Other than that, all that is left is trim details on the base corners and edges and the trim to cover the seams in the upholstery.

I think there is a craps night at my house in the very near future.

continue to part 8