Detailed Table Build - Raised rail, LED strip, custom cloth (3 Viewers)

[TheDirtMerchant]

Awesome. Will be trying to mimic this in the future.

 

[allforcharity]

Woo-hoo! Nice execution!

 

[CHP TD]

well done

that is some nice work.

Where in oz are you?

Geoff

 

[chkyrslf]

well done

that is some nice work.

Where in oz are you?

Geoff

Hey mate, thanks for that - pretty happy with it!

I'm in Newcastle (I visit Canberra sometimes for work, too cold right now!).

 

[Spoklahoma]

Alrighty, and tonight with all these grooves and panels/strips cut, I wanted to give it a bit of a test fit with a couple of diffuser panels in place. I haven't glued down any of the riser pieces yet, that will come next, just wanted to see how everything fit together before I went too far and couldn't change riser positions etc.

The piece you see in front of the diffuser came from a suggestion in my other rail design thread, but that piece extends essentially the height of the surface foam that will be applied to the playing surface, so that when the cloth is wrapped around, it gives it a nice edge, rather than compressing the edge of the foam and making a round edge into the diffuser panel - that's the plan anyway!

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How's that for minimum diffusing distance!?!

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Only got 2x diffuser panels in place, but can see it gives a nice even glow (that dark patch is just where the LED rope excess is currently, will sort that later on).

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Can see only the top of the neon flex tube extends above the playing surface, hiding the dark strip exactly as measured...whew.

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and that's it for today. More to follow in the coming days. Really looking forward to getting into the upholstery stage and seeing this thing really come to life!

@chkyrslf Amazing! I'm doing something very similar with strips of acrylic I'll cut as a diffuser. One question... did you glue the ends of each strip together or just set them in the routed groove nice and tight?

 

[chkyrslf]

@chkyrslf Amazing! I'm doing something very similar with strips of acrylic I'll cut as a diffuser. One question... did you glue the ends of each strip together or just set them in the routed groove nice and tight?

Hey sorry for the delay! Nope absolutely no glueing here. The strips are pressed in so tight, it was just a matter of trying to get the edges of each piece to sit up against each other as flush as possible (which meant ensuring the edge cuts were as straight as could be).

 

[Spoklahoma]

Hey sorry for the delay! Nope absolutely no glueing here. The strips are pressed in so tight, it was just a matter of trying to get the edges of each piece to sit up against each other as flush as possible (which meant ensuring the edge cuts were as straight as could be).

Got it and thanks. I'll be cutting my strips of acrylic this weekend so I'll just go into it expecting an all day long process like you had. Anything shorter than that I'll chalk up as a win.

 

[brains613]

Okay update time! Been a slow couple of weeks, but nudging closer to the finish line.

Next up was doing the cupholders. I had seen the idea on here for the double stage and while I've seen some of those marine ones you guys buy in the US, I just ordered a set of jumbo and a set of mini cupholders, with the plan of punching a hole in the jumbo and brazing a mini to the bottom of it.

Luckily a mate offered to use his lathe which made the job so much easier and precise.

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The minis actually fit so snugly into the jumbos that brazing wasn't needed, so I went with some epoxy glue instead - plus brazing would've likely left scorch marks so this will do the job and the lip of the mini cupholder will take the weight anyway. I set up a little jig to hold them while the epoxy set, and also put some weights in them to make sure the minis were pulled down into the jumbo while the glue set.

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Then it was time to cut out the playing surface - this is because I'll be wrapping the cloth around this piece rather than all the way to the edge of the table. So back to the router jig!

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The double cupholder idea is a stroke of genius. Have you played on it yet? How are they working out?

 

[chkyrslf]

The double cupholder idea is a stroke of genius. Have you played on it yet? How are they working out?

I certainly can't take credit for that! Saw it on here with Chanman and a few others, certainly a great idea!

Yeah it's working out perfectly, have had a few games on it now. Perfect for beer bottles, cans, and whiskey glasses! They all sit nice and low and can't be knocked over

 

[rcamp014]

Such an amazing build! Thanks for sharing the details. Plan to use your build as my template.

Well done!

 

[4SUMERZ]

What an awesome job on this table. Congrats on a job very well documented.

 

[Allinallout]

It doesn't look it, but cutting these strips took me an entire day. I'm sure you guys with the right tools and table saws etc. would knock it over in minutes, but I only really had a router (also have jigsaw but too rough), so I had to measure them up, clamp them with a timber guide and carefully run the router along the get nice straight cuts .

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So after buying the LED lights, I ran into a bit of a conundrum. I went with LED 'Neon Flex' over a standard LED strip, as it is set in a silicon tube and essentially 'pre-diffused'. As I have very little clearance behind my diffuser (by design, to also incorporate cupholders - could have gone one or the other, went both), I thought the silicon tube also set behind a diffuser panel would give the desired effect. The only problem is this tubing only emits the light from it's top, and has a solid white material down it's middle, which when set behind a diffuser shows up as a dark strip, rather than a nice even glow.

The neon flex looks like this, you can see the dark strip that I had to contend with...
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I took a few measurements and worked out that if I recessed it into a 10mm deep groove, I would hide all of the dark strip and only the illuminated top area would be protruding above the playing surface. I did up a bit of a test piece to see what the effect would look like:

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This is the standard colour I expect to use - I think it'll work with the green felt and chocolate brown rail. Light looks nice and smooth, no hotspots or dark strips

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Plenty of colour options for fun still.
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I was happy with the lighting effect - and that's with only 3mm of the tube showing above the playing surface! So now I took to cutting the 10mm groove around the outer ring of the playing surface. Due to my space restrictions, this would sit only 5mm behind the diffuser! This didn't seem feasible to me at first as recommendations on this site are for 25mm (1") of distance to help diffuse the light, but that's why I did a mock-up test piece first and was really happy with the result - being 'double diffused' removed the need for distance.

Knowing that I could only leave a 5mm (a smidge over 3/16") rim between the diffuser and the LED groove was nerve racking - that's not a lot of material, so I wanted to get it right. Think I nailed it

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Laid out the LED strip on it's own (no diffuser panel) just to test the width of the groove etc. and have a bit of play. Will still need to trim the LED rope and hide the excess.

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Here's a look at the groove for the LED rope all the way around:

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Amazing job. Are the light strips able to be cut to length like the traditional strip lights?