Making my own game table Part 1

We decided we wanted a game table. We looked at our options and the prices where either too high or not what we wanted. I use to do some carpentry about 8+ years ago and I had the tools so I decided to go ahead and take on the task of making my own table on my own. Here is our journey into making our own game table part 1.

In part 1 I will go up to finishing the table top. I still need to make the legs for the table so right now we have it witting on top of a large folding table till it has legs.

Materials of course. I took a day or two to draw out the design then I went and picked up the wood. Here is a general idea of what we got. I had them cut down some of the pieces to my measurements so I could get them home and also it made it easier than having to cut it myself.

I cut the 1x6x8 down to fit with a 45 degree join on the corners. This all rests on top of a piece of oak plywood for the base.

We wanted to get the top done so we could use it till the table was finished. I went to the local cloth shop and got some velveteen cloth and some car head liner for the padding. We used some spray adhesive to put the padding on the MDF. We then used some spray adhesive to lay the velveteen down then a hand stapler to secure it down from the bottom of the MDF. This was easier than expected and worked out really nice. The white marks in the picture are part of the picture and not the surface of the play area.

We played with just this surface for last 2 months and I suggest using this technique even if you don't want to build a table you can at least have a nice surface to play on.

This is what it looked like before all the cuts when I put the pieces in place. I realized using this alone would make it so that the velveteen would stick up from the boarder and decided I would add another layer of wood to the outer edge to make a small card and dice wall. Another trip to the local lumber yard and I got 3 more sticks of select pine 1x6x8.

 Here I am in the middle of cutting out the  pockets on the 2nd layer of pine to have places to put all of our tokens. I routed out the pockets to give them a smooth round over feel.

This is a preview of the table clamped in place to make sure I was satisfied with the way everything fit together. 

 Next I used a trim-nailer and some 1" nails to put it all together. I also routed out the edge boards with a nice roman edge to give a nice look to the outside of the table. You will notice some holes in the center of the table, those are so I can push up the center play area if I ever need to replace it or fix it for some reason.

To make all the corners look nice and clean I added some stain-able wood filler and sanded the table down using 120 sand paper and a palm sander.

Here is the table sanded with 220 sand paper and ready to stain. I originally got a maple stain thinking I wanted a darker stain on the wood but decided to get a cabernet stain / polyurethane finish to offset the black better.

I used the cabernet stain/poly here. 

 This is my first time using a stain/poly mix instead of staining then using a poly and I put it on too thick and didn't like the way it looked so I sanded the table down to stain it again. We almost kept the table looking like this because of the unique antique grain look. We ended up deciding to stain/poly the wood again, we liked this look but not what we where going for.

This is the final stain and polish before we move it inside and drop the play area in the center.

and here is the top finished and in place on a folding table.

We played our first game of splendor on it tonight and I am pleased with the play area. It is 40"x90" total with a 29"x79" play area. It sits up to 8 comfortably with pockets for all at the table. The total cost for the top was around $350.

So far my total spent is around $500-600 that includes the lumber I will use for the legs, buying some tools I didn't have and re-buying some things like stain and brushes.

Some lessons learned

I have not done carpentry in 8+ years and I shouldn't get my feet back under me on such a large project. I made some amateur mistakes including cutting open a finger because I was routing with the spin instead of against the spin, something any carpenter will tell you never to do.

The 45s on the 1x6 where cut about 2-3 degrees off because my chop saw was not large enough to cut the 6" board at 45 degrees. I did a chop then finished with a jig saw and it didn't work out as expected. I fixed this by sanding it out and using a speed square to make sure they where correct, this ended up with me having to use wood filler on the corners which looks fine but I would have just done it right if I had to do over.

I would have plung cut the pockets instead of using a jig saw for the pockets. This would have made a clear line in the pockets and instead I had to spend a few days sanding them strait to fix it. I tried to use my router and a guide to fix 1 of the pockets but it ended up making it worse. It was a noticeably larger pocket but after it was finished it is not really too notice-able.

I will never use a stain/poly combo again. I have always used a stain then polyurethaned the surface after I got the stain where I wanted and it worked really well in the past. This stain/poly mix is more like painting than staining. You apply 1 coat and never wipe it off which was my original issue, I put too much on making it look more painted than stained. One thing I realized after sanding it is how easy it came off as well, I used some 120 sand paper and was able to get most of it off in about 1-2 hours time. This is probably my biggest issues with the table and something I may rectify some day if I feel it is needed. 


I hope everyone enjoyed the post and if anyone has any comments or adventures like this of their own please let us know in the comments. Look for post 2 when I finish the legs sometime in the future. I won't say when because that depends on me getting in the garage and away from my new table to play on.