Adam Savage here in my cave and I know
I'm in a different spot than I normally
am at the start of a video but that's
because of what this video is about yes
to my right are my rounders poker chips
in the case that I built night I know
I've already done a couple of videos
about them so why are they here again
well because once you have poker chips
of course the next step is to play some
poker and in addition to some players
you need a surface to play upon and that
is what I'm about to do I'm about to
actually make a replica of one of Teddy
KGB's poker tables from rounders to play
with my rounders poker chips and it's
gonna sit right on top of my white oak
table here in the display area which is
why this is where I'm sitting now this
is a one-day build that I have to
complete in a day because a whole bunch
of friends of mine are in town for San
Francisco's sketch fest and we're gonna
have a poker party here tomorrow night
so those are the stakes let's get
building now the dimensions of this
poker table are going to be 47 inches in
diameter because that fits nicely inside
a 48 inch wide piece of plywood I had an
interesting issue with the size of this
table right at the back because I don't
have any 48 inch wide material here I
have all my wood cut to 24 by 48 to
store in the wall behind the camera now
so last night I did a biscuit join of
two sheets I know I could have just
bought a 4x4 but since it was the end of
the night and I realized it late I just
clamped up and glued these together so
this will be the base of the table and
then I'm going to cut a border for the
the padded border of the table and then
cover the whole thing in felt and vinyl
but first I have to make a bunch of
curved cuts in big pieces of plywood and
that's going to require a specialized
piece of equipment this is the tool I'm
gonna use to make all those curved cuts
yes it's a router a Milwaukee router
Milwaukee was one of the tool sponsors
for savage builds and I ended up with
this and I really liked it it's actually
a nice simple straightforward router and
to make large curved cuts I actually
built a custom
router radius cutter I took a long piece
of plywood I traced out this ring shape
so that I could replace this with my
plywood I drilled three holes too I
could attach the plywood with the screws
and this is the piece of plywood I ended
up with it clamps to the bottom like
that and each of these holes is a
specific distance from the cutting edge
of a half-inch router bit so you can cut
any radius up to probably thirty four
inches which is 68 inch diameter that's
a nice big round cut so this is a tool
I'll probably have in my shop for many
many decades and it starts its first
cutting today one thing Milwaukee does
that a lot of tool companies do is they
use these 1024 torques headed panhead
screws it's like do you really need to
use torques headed I mean I got to go
find the special bit and everything so I
replaced them with some 1024 Phillips
head screws just to make it easier to
swap stuff out I have a ton of Phillips
head screwdrivers and there you go that
is all that's required to attach this I
drilled these holes on my mill so they
are super exact and the first radius I'm
cutting is 47 inches that's the first
diameter I'm cutting and so I'll be
going to this mark right here for my
pivot
twenty three and a half it's a forty
seven inch outer diameter right yes okay
so twenty three and a half all right
uh-huh so I gotta set the depth so it
cuts all the way through the plywood
depth is set I know here's the issue
that I'm grappling with right now I need
these to be perfect what I'm making is
the rail I'm making the padded rail but
my rail needs to be perfect half rounds
which means I need my pivot to be right
in the middle here on this guy so I need
to just make a little bit of a slice
here so I can drill down through the
center and be right at that
apex point don't need to be perfectly
lined up
good I feel good about that those are
all clamped together let's clap together
this is uh this is indicative of how
small this shop is is how difficult it
is to build something like a 4-foot
round table top it's just the reality of
the space alright so now I want to go ah
I want to do an inside radius okay and
that means I need to actually measure
from a different spot okay so there's my
main that's the proper radius and
everything's held in orientation
good now I am going to measure from the
outside of the router bit to a pivot
point same spot I know if your carpenter
there's probably a better way to do this
and you do this all the time and you're
yelling at me at the screen because I'm
doing it in a less efficient way I
recognize that it's quick and dirty over
here
all right let's take this all apart and
see what we got smaller table and I
thought after chips here this is a six
person table I was hoping it was a seven
person table but it's six and maybe even
a little tight yeah that's fine okay
so if that's the deal dealy-bob then
radius of this thing wants to be like
about here
there okay so what is that dimension
dimension is give or take
what did you see okay so
all right have one more big router cut
to make oh my god this so much dust this
is crazy
now that's the top this is the bottom
and because I'm laying this down on my
table I want to give it some structural
stability so I'm gonna add a rail along
the inside here but I have to figure out
exactly what diameter my table is so
let's measure that
who
all right so now I have to us attach the
two halves of the rail together and I
have to do that before yeah I have to
attach these two halves to each other so
that is a biscuit joiner moment biscuit
joiner
what's a biscuit joiner well it's the
greatest thing to happen to dowling do
one there one there there a biscuit
joiner well that is a biscuit I know it
looks like a little chunk of wood but
they're called biscuits and what happens
is you use a biscuit joiner ie this
little bad boy and you it actually has a
blade in it that sticks out and cuts
this little radius that matches that
that's what you do is you go real real
real real then you filled the slots with
glue I can talk about it but I could
just show it to you because I'm about to
do it anyway
you fill the slots with glue you put the
biscuits in the biscuits soak up the
glue they suck it up they expand and
they hold really tightly it's awesome
way better than dowels
woodglue is without a doubt my favorite
of all the glutes it is the one glue
that does what it says it does glue wood
better than almost anything else you
could imagine you glue two pieces of
wood together with the right amount of
wood glue with the right procedure and
it's harder to get it's like the wood
will fail before the glue dust that's
how good it is yeah I really dig that
stuff all right so now we killing the
nice thing about biscuit joining over
dowling and the reason it's vastly
better is because with biscuit joining
you can actually move the part a little
bit you actually have a little bit of
room to adjust things and that's
humongous that's good this doesn't have
to be perfect cuz it's gonna get its
strength from being mounted to the
tabletop itself so I'm not super
concerned about that part but I do need
to route the outside edge of this bad
boy and that means I need to clamp it
down again since this gets covered with
padding it's fine if it's a little bit
marked up I don't really mind that
all right it's time to start actually
assembling my table oh I'm gonna hit
that with a little bit of sandpaper but
remember I said I wanted it to clear the
outside of that table and have a little
structural stability which is why I
routed this channel in here but how does
this channel get used well here's the
thing is I am going to use a technique
called kerfing in which you run a piece
of plywood through the table saw many
times and make shallow cuts actually in
this case quite deep cuts very close
together and it allows me to bend my
plywood on a radius but that's way more
of a radius than I need for this poker
table so I went with a slightly wider
spacing on this test piece and this I
really like
so it was weakened while I was dealing
with some other stuff I came in here and
I did some kerfing of enough wood to go
all the way around this table and that's
what I'm about to do I'm about to
circulate around this table with this
stuff and the slot is just big enough
time for some gluing and a glue from
here to here
well that whole thing that you see
carpenters do on YouTube where they
paint every facet of the joints they're
gluing I'm here to tell you that's real
it's just really good practice to do it
the more you do it the more secure your
joints are the fact is I'm not building
this table to a super high tolerance
it's some it's a little loosey-goosey
and if you look up close they're some of
the wing hitches and it's get along but
I don't really care because I'm gonna
use this to be playing poker on or it's
not like we're it's all been World Peace
on this thing what I really want it to
be is solid and it's gonna look just
fine we're gonna hide a lot of crimes
with a cloth that's for sure
what is this this is a 22-gauge nailer
and I didn't know how amazing 22-gauge
nailers could be until tom sex
introduced me to the magic of them they
make these little tiny staples they're
super super thin and you can't even you
can't even barely see them in the wood
they're amazing it's one of my new
favorite tools this is totally amazing
what's just happened I screwed up
so I cut all these this weekend thinking
ah definitely got enough but I did not
measure I was off by an inch and a
quarter all right
I can easily fill that piece and I will
go
what it what an idiot can't believe I
didn't measure it I was so lazy I think
I feel like I'm taking out every power
tool at this job I am using a lot of
different things honestly this is a
project that could be done with simply a
drill of a jigsaw you don't need a lot
of complexity for this one everyone has
their own way of working that utilizes
the tools at their disposal and that's
fine there there's no one right way to
do it that's just the way that you like
to do it so in order to fill this gap I
need to kerf one last piece of plywood
that wide which is great because now
because I didn't film the kerfing you
get to see how kerfing works so what I'm
doing is I'm gonna be setting the depth
of my cut to be close to the sort of 2/3
point of the wood I made a pencil mark
here on my sled and what you'll see is
I'm gonna just start slightly in I make
a cut that's a kerf cut then I move the
left edge over to the pencil mark and
cut again
and I just keep on doing that
that should be enough now a really
important note here this is repetitive
boring work and the fact is everyone I
know who's ever been injured on a table
saw has been injured doing repetitive
boring work it's how it's you can zone
out so you sit there anyone you look
good and then you can start to look
elsewhere and that's when you're gonna
lose the tips of your fingers and it
requires a lot of vigilance to do
tedious work with specific attention but
it's required on the table saw you just
can't let that attention lapse these are
really important to you yeah that was
the only other note
I have another safety note for you nail
guns are the bane of every freakin
employer because there's so many
creative ways you can harm yourself with
them the fact is is when you are about
to I'm actually gonna unplug this so I
don't accidentally do it when you're
about to put a nail into something you
want to make sure your hands not on the
other side that seems totally obvious
right you move your fingers apart that's
great you want to or you or you get a
piece of wood backing and you do it like
that but let me explain that I've seen
people use a thick piece of wood as a
backing for their nail gun and
accidentally drive two nails where the
first one went in and the second one
followed the first one and drove this
first one right through the finger of a
friend of mine at ILM so nothing on your
body should be in line with anything
close to the path of the staple as it
goes through the wood in fact they'll
even go so far as to say your fingers
should be separated from the nails path
by the radius of its distance that means
if it's a one-inch nail you don't want
your fingers within an inch and a
quarter of anywhere that that could go
cuz I've seen nails go through wood at
right angles to show up and enter your
tender flesh be careful when using nail
guns be aware that those nails can
travel and they seek out human flesh and
once they've tasted blood it's all over
I think the next step is kind of
exciting the next step is to take this
over to my white table and make sure
that it
stand on top pretty shirt though oh no I
was pretty sure from the measurements
that was gonna work but ya never know
okay time to move on from the
woodworking portion to the soft goods
portion it's now all about foam and
cloth and vinyl and staples and that's
what I've got here I am going to inorder
separate the ring from the base of the
table I'm going to attach some foam to
the base of the table then I'm gonna put
on some speed cloths which I'll talk
about in a minute then I'm gonna attach
some foam to the rail and then I'm going
to cut and trim the vinyl to the rail
and then I'm gonna staple it all
together and then I'm gonna screw the
whole thing together
I know what I'm gonna do okay
the biggest issue here is that I've got
screws that are going through the main
table into the arm into the rail and I'm
just gonna screw them together but when
you have felt in there the felt can grab
the screw in and totally torque which
means I could spend all this time make
them felt nice and tight and then screw
it up with the screw
it also means I have to get my alignment
perfectly right and I've got the screws
and I got an alignment mark but that's
not quite enough so I'm going to
actually help myself out with two other
alignments I'm gonna drill a quarter
inch hole at either probably here and
here and put a little alignment bolt in
their alignment bolt yeah like a little
you know a pin basically so that I can
pin it and that's when I know that my
screws are all going in exactly the
right place
one two are you really serious as
possible and I'm not quite have enough I
ordered some closed cell foam from
Amazon to arrive today and it didn't I
had some closed cell foam but it's not
enough
you can use any kind of felt for a poker
table I decided to go with what's called
speed felt because it's nice high
quality it's beautiful stuff this is
actually what they used to cover pool
tables with and it's really nice stuff
very very tactile and delightful we're
gonna secure it on this puppy in a
minute
and think I think that might be it
I think I might have all the staples I
need in the perimeter of this thing
yep-yep-yep yep-yep-yep yep-yep-yep all
right time time to cut this I was gonna
say time to cut the staples some time to
cut the staples time to cut the felt but
I think about the meat of the camera and
I got it all wrong - have you got the
film here we go
that was me marking my school hols from
the underside pocket sevens I'm in I'm
on the button let's do it ah yeah
this and upholsterers foam cutter you
don't really need one of these
they're like 350 bucks it's pretty
freakin expensive but I bought it back
when I was making TV money
don't even want to know all right okay
so oh they're both the top I'll feel
that tomorrow
while that's drying I'm gonna put a
little tape on top of these holes to
keep the fabric from doing its work worm
thing good enough
you know the worst part is I bought a
pneumatic stapler but it didn't arrive
it was supposed to arrive today it's
probably gonna arrive tomorrow it's very
physical labor
I was exhausted
just a note I didn't know how to the
exact right methodology for attaching
vinyl to a circular rail like this but
there was a YouTube video about how to
build your own poker table on the cheap
that was very instructive for me linking
to them in the comments below
so you can see where I get my
inspiration almost every build I do I
check out some of what other people are
doing doing if it's aesthetic I don't
because they like my own vision on it
but for this kind of thing totally so I
think that's what we'll call a poker
rail and that's a poker table let us
join these two things and make them one
alright let's take it looks pretty Oh
my tables in the way with my own table
okay yeah it's definitely a small poker
table this is a tight game I thought it
would I thought it alright so let's see
here alright let's see I'll start with
three stacks of high society okay mister
son of beech let's play some cards yeah
yeah dump my hand looks pretty good
actually
I hadn't shuffled them that is my one
day build of my poker table and it's a
little rough around the edges but I'm
pretty pleased with it and clearly I
need to build a bigger one someday
