When my friend Jason heard that I was going to be staying with my mum until I leave for Scotland, he decided that this would be perfect opportunity to use her garage (which my dad had built to house his ’59 Bonneville) to build the poker table of his dreams. For those who don’t know Jason, he’s an “ideas” man. Skeptically, I said sure, let’s do it!
Sure enough, he showed up one morning with two huge pieces of plywood, significant lengths of dark green felt, vinyl, foam, and a brand new jigsaw. We started by making the necessary cuts and quickly realized that “hey, this thing may actually work!”
Day two of the project (after the initial cuts were made) we had a camera on hand to document our progress (and to provide evidence to all those naysayers).
There are three pieces to the table: the playing surface, the racetrack, and the rail.
Here we see Jason sanding down the rail piece.
Gluing the foam to the rail (don’t ask about this part)
Preparing the playing surface.
Stretching out the felt and stapling to the playing surface.
Time for a quick hand (Jason was cheating)
After some delicate sanding, we got the playing surface to fit in the racetrack.
As you can see, the table will be big enough to comfortably sit 10 players.
After admiring our handiwork, it was time to get back to it. Next step: stain the racetrack with a lovely cherry finish.
And since we had to wait for the stain to dry (and we ran out of foam before we could finish the rail) – it was time to call it a day.
