My new table (and chips!) (1 Viewer)

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I had a 4'x8' 10-person table that was too big for my basement, so I sold that and used the money to build myself a smaller 44"x78" 8-person table topper. This is my first table build, and I tried a few different things with the construction, so I thought I'd share. I'm really happy with the results.

First, the finished product!



Technically, this is my new "game" table, not "poker" table, because I will actually be using it more often for boardgames with family and friends than for poker. I broke it in last night with some games of Yahtzee and Blokus with my son.



I built it as a topper and not a table for flexibility. It sits on top of 60" folding table in the basement most of the time, and I can take the poker (I mean game!) table off and use the folding table for other stuff, like crafts or scrapbooking, and I also built a ping pong table that goes on top. Plus, I wanted to have the option of bringing the poker table upstairs and putting on my dining table on my deck for some outdoor poker in the summertime:



I just picked up a set of BCC Casino de Isthmus chips off craigslist, so I took some shots of them on the new table. I've never played with BCCs before, but these are really nice!












In the next post I'll add some pictures of how I built it.
 
I uploaded all (50+) of my build pictures to Photobucket here, if you want to peruse the whole gallery:
http://s156.photobucket.com/user/anarce/library/Poker table

I tried a few things different from the other builds I’ve seen, some to save weight and some to save cost and try new materials.

I think the biggest difference is that I built the base like a Structural Insulated Panel (SIP). This is just a sandwich of rigid foam insulation between two layers of plywood. My goal here was to create a base that weighed the same as a 1/2” sheet of plywood but was flatter and stronger. I used a sheet of 5mm (0.2”) plywood on top and bottom with 1.5” foam in between.



The thin plywood and foam were both wavy, and I wasn’t sure how flat this would turn out. I glued everything together with regular wood glue, put a bunch of weight on top, and left it alone for 24 hours. The end result was very flat and strong!



I got dual-diameter jumbo cup holders, so I took advantage of their shape by cutting a smaller hole in the base and a larger hole in the rail. This lets the cup holders bear on the top of the base, so they can’t be pushed down through the rail, and I didn’t need to use support rings around them.



The special rail foam is kind of expensive, so I looked at other options. Everything at JoAnn was really soft and squishy. I decided to try 1/2” thick anti-fatigue mats from Harbor Freight. I bought two for $10 each and cut them out and glued them to the rail.





This took some piecing together because the rail was longer than the mat, so I had to get creative.



I bought the two mats and different times and realized later that they were slightly different. The interlocking shape was different, and they were slightly different thicknesses and densities. Even though the packaging was the same, they actually had different product numbers on them. So if you try this, make sure you get two identical mats to make it easier.

The 1” foam wasn’t quite thick enough to extend all the way to the lip of the cup holders, and I wanted to round the shape off some more, so I covered it with a sheet of 1” polyester batting from JoAnn. I thought the dual density of the batting and the foam might be comfortable too, like a progressive rate spring. Then I wrapped it with Whisper Vinyl. I sank T-nuts in the top of the rail and used flat bolts up through the base to hold it all together.



My original plan involved a piece of 1/2” plywood (cut out of the middle of the rail) under the playing surface, with suited speed cloth wrapped around and stapled underneath it. My dog was really helpful with that step:



Turns out when I got that and the rail covered, it wouldn’t fit in the middle anymore! So I went back to the drawing board and attached the SSC directly to the SIP-panel base instead. I used some thin batting underneath the SSC instead of the fancy Volara foam, and it feels fine to me, though I’ve never played on a table with the foam.



To make the table topper easier to move around, I cut holes in the back and added recessed plastic handles in four spots:





One drawback to the SIP panel method is how to cover up the exposed foam on the edge?



I decided to take scrap pieces of the 0.2” thick plywood and used it as edge banding. That was easy on the sides, but the curves were tricky. I had to kerf the crap out of the back to make it bend well.





I used two straight pieces and two curved pieces of edge banding, and where they came together I added wood pieces over the seam. These little blocks also stand out a little bit wider than the rail, so when I set the table on its side, it rests mostly on these blocks and not on the vinyl. Then I stained the edges and covered it with polyurethane.



The other night I finally finished it and bolted the rail on. Once again my dog was very helpful!



Thanks for reading!
 
Wow man, nice work!!! I love the table... and your diplomacy skills. I love the idea of being able to move the 'game' outside very easily.
 
I just finished games of Catan Junior and Prime Climb with my son on the table. It's great for rolling dice on. The rail is firm but not uncomfortable. We'll see how it goes for a long poker tourney.
 
I really like the ply/foam idea. How much does the entire topper weigh?
I don't have a scale at home, but I'd wager it's close to 60 lbs. I can move it around by myself with some effort because it's so wide. With my old 4'x8' table with folding legs it was definitely a 2-person job to lug that around.
 
So before I built my table, I actually measured some of our board games to make sure they would fit and adjusted the width of the table accordingly. One of the larger games I checked was Castle Panic. We played it tonight and it fit great!

IMG_20170517_193547.jpg


This is a fun game if you have kids around 8-12 years old. It takes a few hours to play, so it's nice to have a dedicated game table where we can leave the game set up and finish it another day.
 
I really love the look of this. How did you hide the plywood edges for your edge banding tops and bottoms?
I don't have a good close-up photo of this, but basically the padded rail is wide enough that it covers everything. If you peek under the edge of the rail under the vinyl you can see it a little bit. If I did it over again, I might make the plywood for the rail slightly wider to cover the edge banding even more.

Where the edge banding was kerfed, I filled in all the gaps between the top sheet of the base and the edge banding with some wood filler and sanded it down. With the dark stain, it all blends together. On the underside, I didn't care what it looked like, so I just covered the gaps with some wood glue all the way around to tie the edge banding and the bottom sheet of plywood together more into a solid panel.

The first game on my new table is tomorrow night, so I'll get some pictures of it in action!
 
We had a great first game tonight. I built the table for 8, but we squeezed in 9 for a while. We ended up playing cash instead of a tourney, so I used my PCAs instead of the CDIs. The Lucky Derby $3s were actually quarters. Fun times!

IMG_20170520_201448.jpg
 

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