- Right-o here we go.
Orange ball top right pocket.
Beautiful.
Ray Reardon, Eddie Charleton.
They've got nothing.
G'Day Folks
Uncle Nick is here and welcome to
my Summer Builds 2021 project.
Check it out. What an absolute little ripper.
Oh, I love it.
- Summertime's a great excuse to go outdoors
and play a few games, which was the inspiration
for this project. To build a pool table that you
can take outdoors, that is portable,
hangs up on the wall for storage and, wait for it,
It rotates.
Yep, You heard right.
It rotates.
And why does it rotate?
Well, you better stay tuned to find out why.
Let's Go.
Now, the first thing we need to do is to
cut the playing surface to size.
Now for the playing surface, I've got myself a sheet
of plywood as 1200 millimetres or 4 feet wide.
And this sheet is 2.4 metres or 8 feet long
which is a bit too big for what I want
S I'm going to cut this
down to a length of 2 metres and 50 millimetres
which is a bare 80 and 3 quarters of an inch.
Now, as you can tell, I'm using this black form ply
for the playing surface, and this is the same stuff they use
on construction sites for forming up concrete.
Now there's two main reasons why I'm using the
black form ply number one is
that it comes in beautifully, smooth, straight, and flat.
And number two is that the surface is waterproof
to a certain degree, which is great
if ya accidentally spilled a drink, which let's face it
It's pretty unlikely.
As if you're going to be sitting around with your mates
having a beer whilst playing pool.
It never happened.
No, not on my watch.
Now I just need to explain one thing very
quickly regarding cutting the ply to size.
Now the pool table's going to be made
up of two sheets of plywood.
The first one is that 17 millimetre
which I think is a touch over five eighth
of an inch of black form ply that's for the playing surface.
And the second is a sheet of 12 millimetre
or half inch marine grade ply that's for the base.
Right-o, listen up.
This is where you need to take note.
That playing surface the black form ply,
whatever size you cut that
it needs to be about 20 millimetres
or three-quarters of an inch smaller in width
and length than the marine grade ply that you're using
for the base down below.
Just remember that.
(saw grinding)
Now, these two sets of templates that I just knocked up
I'll be using those to mark out the corner
and the side pockets.
Now, with our corner pocket template
I've got that pointy bit right there,
Line that up to the corner of our playing surface.
And I've also got a mark in the centre up here.
We want to line that up
with our 45 degree line that we marked in earlier.
So place a corner on the corner like that.
And then the centre
on that 45 degree line, that's looking pretty good.
And now with your pencil, mark the corners
Bing, bang and boom, and then
And then grab at your combination square
and run a 45 degree angle
back from here
and from over
there.
Beautiful.
Now I've just placed a few white dots on all those corners
that using a white paint marker that just makes
lining things up a bit easier.
Now using the second part of our corner pocket template,
which is this one here,
line that up to our white dots.
And then we'll stick that down
With some spray adhesive.
Okay, That looks pretty good.
Now all we need to do is to repeat that process
for the centre pockets, using our centre pocket template.
(jazzy music playing)
Beautiful.
Okay, It's time to cut the top rail for the pool table
to length.
Now I'm using two pieces of 89 by 19 millimetre pine
which I'll laminate together.
And once I do, that'll come to a height of 38 millimetres
which is almost a standard height of a pool table cushion.
Now I'll cut these to length the same size
as the ply that we're using for the base and not the ply
for the playing surface.
And just for the record, if you're using my pocket
hole template, that will only work
if you're using rails that are roughly
the same size as mine.
(saw cutting)
Okay. Those rails have now been cut
and I've temporarily nailed them together,
and then clamped them down in place
on top of the playing surface
ready for the holes to be cut out for the pockets.
Now, if we have a look down here
you'll also see
that I've nailed on some 10 millimetre blocks
on both sides of every corner.
That just makes it so much easier to line up the edges
of that top rail.
To mark at the holes for the pockets
the first thing we need to do is to draw a 10
millimetre line on the edge of both sides of that corner.
Now, these two lines here represent the edge
of the playing surface plywood.
Now grab your trusty old template once again
and with the sharp end that fit there
place it on the intersection like that
and then swivel this around until that edge
and that edge hit the top rail at exactly the same time
which
is about
there.
That looks pretty good.
And then with your pencil, mark each point.
Bang and Bang.
Then just simply with your combination square run a 45
degree line off both of those points, as you can see there.
Next grab the second part of your template, line that corner
and that corner up with these two points.
Just like that.
That looks pretty good.
And then with your pencil, you can just run a few lines
off that template.
And that'll give us a line for our jigsaw to follow
Beautiful.
(sawing)
Okely-Dokely, there's that pocket all cut out.
I have to say it didn't turn out too bad.
Five more to go.
The next job on the agenda
is to build the frame for the pool table.
And this is going to be the meat
in the sandwich for those two sheets of ply.
And we're going to build this to exactly the same dimensions
as the shade of ply that we're using for the base.
Now, just a quick heads up, this section here is
the ball catchment area.
Might have to workshop that phrase.
Sounds a bit risque.
Anyway, just make sure
that the inside rail is 160 millimetres, which is about six
and a quarter of an inch in from the outside edge.
(jazzy music playing)
(saw blade twanging)
Now this is the centre
of our table and this is our centre rail.
Now you might have noticed
that I have made a 13 mil check out just there.
And I've also added a ledge on this rail and this rail
which sit down that 13 millimetres
the same as our centre rail.
Now look, this is purely experimental
but what I'm thinking is using an off cut
from that first sheet that we cut, I'll drop that in place.
And then I'll screw on a lazy Susan mechanism
and then pretend this is the base of your pool table
That'll sit on top, just like that.
Now, if this pool table goes onto a much larger table
it can be difficult to play certain shots.
So having this in place will enable us to rotate the table
so we can make the shot.
Now it could be an absolute disaster.
Or it might be fantastic.
You just have to keep on watching and see what happens.
Okay. Let's just get rid of that frame
for the time being and concentrate
on laminating the top rails by glueing , nailing
and screwing the boards together.
and just make sure you do that from underneath that way.
It won't be seen.
And don't forget to wipe
off any excess glue as that can stain the pine.
Plywood that's been cut leaves a sharp edge.
So I just want to give all those edges a little bit of love
by applying a small round over cut with my router.
(jazzy music playing)
This is then followed up by glueing a thin strip
of pool table cloth to the inside of the holes.
Okay. I just want to give the top of the table a quick sand
with an 80 grit sandpaper, just to take
off that ultra shiny surface.
Okay folks, here comes the tricky bit.
The part that I've been absolutely dreading
and that is fitting the pool table cloth.
Seriously, I'm just playing it by ear at the moment
as I know absolutely nothing about the process
I just hope I get it tight enough, without any wrinkles.
Speaking about wrinkles, what's old grey
and wrinkly and hangs out grandpa's underpants?
- Grandma.
- Yeah, because she does all your washing and that. So
- Yeah, that's a job.
The washing
yeah
better go feed the dog.
And there you have it.
That was really hard work I have to say
but it turned out pretty good.
I'm absolutely stoked, actually relieved is
more the word.
Beautiful.
(jazzy music playing)
Now just a quick tip when drilling these holes
make sure everything's clamped down nice and tightly
with a block on top and a block
underneath this one down here will stop any blowout
underneath the playing surface ply
and having it clamp down nice and tightly will stop
any sawdust buildup underneath the cloth.
Clamp the frame hard down
onto the underside of the playing surface
and then attach the frame using these L brackets.
To cover up the edge
of the playing surface that shows the blue cloth
I'm just nailing on a trim as a cover strap.
Look at that fits like a finger in a glove.
Just making a support here that needs to go
on before the base is screwed down.
Before I do screw the base down.
I just want to cut out the hole
for the wall hanging slot and the lazy Susan.
Yep. I said lazy Susan.
And I do apologise if I have offended anybody called Susan
for referring that they are potentially lazy
because after extensive research, I did actually find
out that most people called Susan are in fact not lazy.
Cheers.
That's a good cuppa.
Just a bit of Uncle Nickers rustification work
going on here.
Courtesy of a saw,
chisel,
nails,
screws
and last but not least my trusty old hammer.
Make sure you fill up all those holes
with a bit of black paint and then finish
off with a couple of coats of a clear polyurethane.
Now the reason for the table rotating is
that say you place my seven foot table
on a table that is maybe 12 feet.
It's going to be difficult to play a shot
on one end while standing so far away from the table
spin the pool table around and the problem's fixed.
- Now with all that done, let's play some pool.
(balls clanking together)
- Now, if you want to see more videos, just like that one
make sure you check
out my favourite top three scrap wood projects, playlist
which should be popping up over there.
Very shortly.
Hope to see you there.
And I have to give a big thanks
to Vic from Down Under Woodworks
for getting off his bum and organising the challenge.
Cheers mate, you're a legend.
Alrighty. After all that, I'm on
for a cup of tea and the game of pool.
So til next time be good, be safe.
And I'm out of here.
Cheers.