After reading about how to build a poker table for ages, I finally just went out and did it. And it really wasn’t that hard.
Basically, just cut a bunch of circles and screw them all together…. basically.
I started out with just one sheet of 3/4″ sanded oak veneer ply. Not the lightest to carry by yourself, but hey, I need the exercise.
I was trying to figure out how to make all these circles as accurately as possible, so I put together a simple circle jig that the jigsaw sits in. It’s made of a scrap strip of 1/4″ i had laying around, screwed to a 2×2. I cut out a rectangle that the base of the jigsaw sits pretty snug into and drilled holes at different lengths away from the blade. This thing made cutting the circles a breeze. Never had to measure or mark anything. Just dropped a screwdriver into the correct hole in the jig and away I went.
Got all these circles cut out in no time with that jig. Here you can see all the pieces of the table strewn about my driveway. You can also see that I should probably reseal my driveway, but that’s another project. The thinnest ring is the rail lip, the second thinnest ring is the top of the padded rail, and the fatty ring is the racetrack.
The smaller solid circle is the playing surface and the larger circle is the base for the table that everything else sits on.
I got all that out of one 4×8 sheet of ply but it was a tight squeeze. if you look close at the 2 rail rings you can see some flat parts where the edge of the circle was cut off since the ring went outside the area of the ply. No biggie, since that is going to be padded and covered in vinyl anyways. Not really noticable in the finished product, unless you are REALLY looking for it.
Next, I put on a coat of stain on the racetrack and the bottom base piece. Beautiful.
While that was drying, armed with my pile of 40% off coupons for JoAnn fabrics, I went off to get myself some vinyl and foam. Ended up getting 54″ of whisper vinyl and 2 sheets of 1″ HD foam. JoAnn’s only has the skinny sheets of foam, so I ended up having to cut out 4 smaller curves to go all the way around the rail. (Only ended up needing one sheet. I’ll use the leftover one on the next table) To hide the seams, I just laid a small piece of thin batting that I had laying around over the seam before I stretched the vinyl over it. (What manly man doesn’t have extra batting laying around? I can see the Milwaukee’s Best can falling from the sky to squish me now)
First screwed the 2 rail rings together. Tested to make sure it still fit on the racetrack. It did.
Then I laid out the ring on the foam and vinyl. Pulled and stretched the outside of the rail, stapled and trimmed. Then cut the star in the middle and pulled inside up and stapled that down. Did a quick test and yep, it still fit on that racetrack. Yay!
The next day my order from yourautotrim.com got to my place and i built the playing surface. I ordered one yard of forest green suited speed cloth and one yard of 1/4″ closed cell neoprene for the padding under the suited cloth. I must say that suited speed cloth sure is nice. Laid out the foam, covered, stretched and stapled. No problemo. Then I just screwed it down to the center of the base piece. You can see the racetrack drying from it’s latest coat of poly in the background.
The table pedastal is from the bar I work at. It was rusting away in the basement, so I thought I could put it to better use. Used a few T nuts to bolt the leg to the bottom base.
After that playing surface was done and screwed on, all that there was really left to do is finish applying coats of poly to the race track. I ended up putting on 6 total and I am really happy with the finish. Nice and glossy, but the grain is still plainly visible. Looks good if I do say so myself.
Final poker table dimensions:
48″ total width
3″ padded rail with 1″ HD foam padding
5″ racetrack
32″ playing surface
29″ legroom under table
about 32″ total height
Materials list and (approx) cost:
1 - 4×8 oak veneer ply - $36
1 - table pedastal - donation
1 yd - neoprene - $16
1 yd - suited speed cloth - $17
54″ whisper vinyl - $14 (used 40% off coupon)
2.5 yds green 1″ HD foam - $15 (used 40% off coupon)
4 t-nuts and bolts - cheap, i just had these laying in my “shop”
an assload of staples - $2 per box
Tags: , poker, poker table by chadd
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