Poker Table

After missing a few weeks of poker because of everyone’s scheduling issues I was having some withdrawal symptoms… Finally, I figured I just start work on building a poker table to remedy the ailment. They’re literally 1,000,000,000,000,921 different tutorials on building a poker table online and all of them except #200,282,120 were very useful. I decided to build the table taking the advice of a number of poker sites’ guides. I went to home depot with Budhiono and bought some good quality 3/4″ Oak Plywood, a carpenter’s square to draw out the arcs and a jig saw. We were going to get a little hand held craftsman-type saw but we figured that would take forever and wouldn’t come out nearly as nice. After managing to drive home with the 4′ x 6′ piece of Oak on the Malibu’s roof we got to measuring out the arcs at the corners and put that jig saw to use. We did fairly well in terms of accuracy and whatever rough edges were left we took care of with some good old #80 & then #120 sandpaper. After a quick over with the fine sandpaper we threw on our coat of polyurethane to shield the wood from spills, weathering, etc. Here are the pictures so far. The project should take another ~4hrs of labor after we get the parts which should total up to about $125 all together. Things I’ve yet to buy are; the cloth/felt for the table, some 3” diameter water/pool-noodles and vinyl to wrap it in for a rail.

5/17/05 – Removed folding legs from old table in the storage room, cleaned off as much of the crap/rust as I could and then coated it with StainMaster’s spray-paint. Covers up all the rust marks, provides protection for the metal and serves as a good primer. The legs will be spray-painted metallic black soon. Attached the legs, erected the table and measured it at 29″. The table is pretty sturdy but has some weakpoints; for what we’ll be using the table for there shouldn’t be any problems what so ever.

5/24/05 – Applied the Volara foam/padding yesterday with Budhiono–I forgot to take any pictures of the table after or during the padding installation. My bad/bust?!? Today we got the fabric from a place in China Town and then installed that too. Phase 1 is officially complete. Phase 2 consists of building and adding a rail system. The foam wasn’t that difficult to install; we sprayed on the adhesive stuff, layed the foam down and let it dry for a few minutes. We decided to run the foam over the edge of the table and staple it from underneath to pad the edges since we’re not gonna have a rail right now. This step, as opposed to just cutting off the corners and leaving it there with the spray only, required a lot more labor since we had to run along the bottom side of the table with the staple gun. Today we picked up the fabric from this place in China Town came back and got to work. First thing we needed to do was cut off the excess length which we didnt need, and then iron out any wrinkles. We brought down the iron to the garage along with some starch-spray and gave it a good pressing from the bottom side of the fabric. We flipped it over so that the topside was up and staples down one side, this wasn’t so bad since we didnt need to worry about wrinkles. Every side after that though required Budhiono to pull the hell outa the fabric while I stapled from underneath. About 2 hours later we had stapled all along the bottom side of the table and trimmed off the left over fabric hanging from the middle. The table is all done for now and ready for some action! The only thing left to do now is Phase 2 which consists of us building a railing for the table.

Total Cost For Phase 1
3/4″ 6′ x 8′ Sheet of Oak Plywood…$43.99
Carpenter’s Steel Square…$4.97
Black&Decker Jig Saw…$39.66
Returned Black&Decker Jig Saw…-$39.66
1/4″ 5′ x 9′ Sheet of Volara Closed-Cell Foam…$29
Benjamin Moore Polyurethane…FREE
Refurnished 29″ Folding Table Legs…FREE
Staple Gun…FREE
Stainmaster White Spray Paint…FREE
Benjamin Moore Black Paint for Metals…FREE
Multiple 2 1/2″ Oil Brushes…FREE
Adhesive Spray to stick the padding to the table…FREE
3 Yards of Velveteen Fabric…$42
Budhiono’s Labor (10hrs @ $0.40/hr + $1 Bonus)…$5 in shares or 4.5% of the table
Total…$119.96