Say hello to my new friend, the Bosch 1617EVSPK Router.

And the 1/4" by 1" Spiral Upcut router bit.

I'll be using these to make all my cuts while building the third poker table. However, unlike the jigsaw I used for the previous tables, I can't really do any free hand cutting with the router. I have to have a guide for the straight cuts, and I needed to make a jig for the circular cuts.

I happened to have an extra piece of 1/4" cut plywood around, so I'll be using that for the jig. I drew a line down the center of the plywood, then set the router centered over the line near the end of the board and marked the screw holes.

I drilled the screw holes, then drilled out a circle in the center for the bit of the router to come through.

Then I just had to insert the screws through the bottom of the board into the screw holes on the router. Here it is all mounted.

Now that I had the router mounted, I wanted to do a test circular cut with it. I first needed to mark up the cut line for when I do the actual cut of the rail, so I know where the extra wood is that I can use for testing out the router. I have a hole drilled into this metal ruler on the 1" mark, and then the 25" mark, so I can trace out a 24" line.

Now I measured out 24" from the bit of the router along the centerline of the jig and drilled a hole there.

I used the metal ruler to mark a test cut line. Put the jig in place centered on the same spot, and I'm ready to make my first cut!!!

The cut went super smoothly!!!

I am really happy with the smoothness of the cut surface. This is definitely the way to go for a more professional looking edge.

I'll need to do one more test cut before I'm ready to actually cut out the rail. The one thing I didn't do with my test cut was see exactly where on the line the jig ends up making the cut. The cut is a full 1/4" and the line is much thinner than that. I don't know that it matters all that much, as long as it is consistent, but I want to know.

BDA

So I was doing the final bits of cleanup in my garage last night and I managed to step on my jigsaw and break it. :(

I had been considering moving to a router for the cutting of the plywood anyway though. So I'm now the proud owner of a Bosch 1617EVSPK router. Now I have lots of testing to do with that first before I'm going to be ready to make my first actual cuts for the table.

I would say only about 20% chance of having the table ready in time for the March 17th game at my house. :(

BDA

Ok, final decision made, we're going black and orange!!

Fabric & foam have been ordered. Now to finish getting the garage cleaned up.

The oak plywood arrived today. Looks good, same basic color as the sheets I used for the other tables, maybe slightly more reddish.

I'll go make the final color choice tomorrow. Then some more garage cleanup before I can start the real work.

BDA

For anyone interested, here were the final results of the poker table color survey:

I finally decided to make a third table for my basement poker games. The other two have held up nicely and I still really like the design.

This table will be a foot longer, at 9', and will just be a table topper, though still have the playing surface, wood racetrack, and padded rail. It will be build to fit smoothly over the 9' redwood table in my basement. I had to call around a bunch of lumber stores to finally find a 10'X4' sheet of oak plywood that I'll use for the racetrack. Was going to get the other sheet in a cheaper material, but they actually didn't have anything cheaper in the 10'X4' size. So this table will be a bit pricer than the others. :(

I have a set of Suited Speed Cloth samples still. Took those with me to Joann's fabrics to look at the vinyl they had available. Decided to take a bunch of pictures, since I had the idea to post them all and have people vote on them. Ended up with 8 different color combinations, which I put on a Survey Monkey survey online. You can check out the survey (please do go ahead and vote, still interested in further opinions) here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KM9SYQH

Got 53 votes, although four of those didn't do the second page of color themes. I like the analytics of the rating question on survey monkey, but it certainly isn't setup well for rating of images.

Some interesting data points:

Largest number of "Please don't"s: Orange with black (20)
Largest number of "Awesomeness": Orange with black (17)
Lowest number of "Please don't"s: Red with black textured (2)
Lowest number of "Awesomeness": Red with gray (1)
Lowest average score: Blue with blue (2.43)
Highest average score: Red with black textured (3.51)

This process has narrowed it down to two choices then:

Go with the table everyone will like, but not many will be excited about (Red with black textured, which had 23 "Decent" votes)

Go with the table that people felt strongly about, both negatively and positively. (Orange with black)

The orange with black has a leg up in my mind. My wife Lisa and I got married on Halloween, and have many Halloween themed decorations in the house, so it fits in well with that. I'm also a Giant's fan. :)

I should get the oak plywood tomorrow 2/22/12, which is from a different source, and is red oak rather than white oak. I'll cut off a small piece, then put a couple coats of poly on it,
so that I can put the final color of the wood next to the playing surface and rail vinyl. Then make the final decision.

Thanks to everyone that voted!!

BDA

Ok, here we go with poker table #2! I'll have more pictures this time around, since I'm documenting from the very beginning. First couple pics will be coming shortly.

I'm using the same plywood again, and same basic design, but using different vinyl & playing surface cloth. This cloth is much different than the nylon velvet I used on the first table. Its not as soft, but should have MUCH better card slide. I think this color combo should work out nicely as well.