DIY Shuffleboard
I thought about building a shuffleboard table for a couple years, but a couple things stopped me.
There isn't much information to be found. I couldn't find anyone who had actually done it before, except the
guy that sells plans on EBay, but I didn't want to pay for plans that I couldn't follow (He recommends finding a
saw mill to do the playing surface for you??!!). Eventually I decided that I could make a table very cheaply with
laminated plywood for the cradle and MDF for the surface. Even if it didn't play perfect, it only cost about $200 to make.
And if it was really a disaster, I could cut it up and haul it to the dump.
The major compromise with my table is the playing surface. It's made with sheets of MDF butted together and supported
below with 1x4 pine boards. Real tables are made with a maple butcher block. This type of surface was out of the question
for me for two reasons: The maple alone would cost at least a couple hundred dollars. After the boards were laminated
together, they would needed to be planed with a suface planer. While I love buying new tools, I couldn't envision ever
using a planer again. So why are shuffleboards made from maple? I can't say for sure... But maple is a relatively
cheap hardwood, it's very hard (nearly as hard as oak, and harder than poplar), it's non-porous, and it's very stable.
I don't really know how MDF compares on hardness. I doubt it is as hard. But it's perfectly flat.
It's not porous and therefore finishes very well. And most importantly it's much more stable and unaffected by changes
in humidity. So there is no need for climatic adjusters that real shuffleboard tables use. I figured after a couple
coats of polyuerethane the surface really doesn't matter a whole lot anyway. There is a downside of using and MDF
playing surface: It doesn't look as cool as a maple butcher block. It isn't sold in pieces larger than 8', so there
will be seems to deal with. Real tables have a slightly concave shape made by the climatic adjusters. I'm not sure
why this is desirable, but I didn't bother trying to replicate this.
I didn't really keep track of the materials I bought, or take pictures during construction. I really didn't expect
the table to come out as well as I did. So most of this is from memory, and it's certainly not a detailed plan. But
if you have some carpentry skills and the proper tools this isn't a difficult project.
Dimensions
Tools
Materials
Building the LegsI build the legs first. I took the squares of poplar and rounded the edges off with a roundover router bit. I took 4 of the 22.5 x 4 inch strips, glued all the mitered edges and put them together to form a 4" square leg. Down the center of one of the sides of the leg I routed a 20.5" long by 1/4" deep dado and squared the ends up with a chisel. To do that I built a simple jig with scrap wood that held the router on the center of the leg. I screwed that jig into the base of my router. Once the dado was routed I capped each leg top and bottom with the poplar squares fastening them with brads and glue. It's important to make the grain of the poplar perpendicular to the edge of where the cradle will sit. The cradle rests on the cantilevered edge of the poplar. It would snap like a twig if the grain went the wrong way. I used a couple screws to hold the poplar squares on the top of the leg. After making 4 identical legs like this I connected the legs in pairs by putting the 15 1/2" x 20 1/2" plywood pieces into the dados and fastening it with glue and brads toenailed into the sides)
Building the CradleThe cradle is just a simple box. I started by butting 2 of the 6' pieces of plywood together and fastening them at what would be the top of the cradle with a mending plate. At the bottom I screwed one of the 1x4x10 pine boards centered on the seem of the plywood pieces. Once I made 2 12' pieces for the sides of the cradle I made a box by screwing the 25" x 9 7/8" strips to form the cradle. Then I took 2 more of the 10' pine boards and cut them into pieces matching the inside width of the cradle. I put 2 pocket screw holes on each edge of the pieces and screwed them into the cradle. It's important to cut these pieces acurately as they will square up the cradle. Once the cradle was finished I took the legs and attached them at either end of one of the pine boards. I put the cradle onto this and attached it with screws, the angle brackets, and metal screws. In the picture there are also shelf brackets, but I don't think they really added anything.)
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Once the frame of the cradle was completed I put pieces of MDF into the cradle to make the floor of it. It just rests on the pine supports and isn't attached in any way. Then I put the foam padding on the sides and floor edges using Super 77 and staples. Then I carpeted the whole thing using carpet scraps I had lying around attached with staples Building the Playing SurfaceThe playing surface is pretty simple. I used 3 pieces of mdf, because I messed up the first surface, but if I hadn't... I took 2 pieces of 18" by 67" MDF and butted them together with glue. If I had a biscuit joiner I would have used it also. Then I reinforced the back with the last 2 10' pine boards, some scrap MDF, and lots of glue and screws)
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To make the surface, first I painted parts of it red where the lines and numbers would be. After that dried I put painter's tape for the 1, 2, and 3 point lines. The back of the lines are at 6", 12", and 36" from the back of the board. After the paint dried I printed out numbers on a sheet of paper, cut them out with a utility knife, and glued them in place with Duron spray on adhesive. )
Then I used black spray paint to paint the whole surface. Once this dried I removed the tape and numbers and started with the polyurethane. I did the first two coats without any sanding. After the third coat I let it dry about three hours, sanded it down with 220 grit sandpaper and a random orbital sander on the slowest speed, wiped it with a tack cloth and put on another coat. I repeated this process until I did about 8 coats of poly. 8 coats probably wasn't necessary, I think 5 would have been fine. Make sure you have good light so you don't miss any spots. And don't worry about brush strokes or air bubbles. They will work themselves out as it dries. Between coats I wrapped the foam brush in plastic wrap so it could be reused. After the last coat, I sanded again, then put on two light coats of spray on poly. I let the field dry for a couple days then put on two coats of Bowling Alley wax. This is really just a furniture wax, and a pretty crappy one, IMHO, at that. I just bought it because it was really cheap and it sounded like a good thing to use. But I think a good car wax would probably have worked better. Before playing I used a mist of silicone spray, just regular stuff, not the crazy overpriced 'shuffleboard' silicone spray. I don't know if there is any difference other than the price, but I doubt it. For the powder wax I've played with both Sun-Glo speed 5 and speed 6 wax. I prefer speed 5. It's very fast for a 12' table. )
Leveling the Surface in the CradleThe playing surface 'floats' in the cradle on the shelving rails. The rails sit on bolts that come up from the bottom of the table. I drilled holes in the floor of the cradle, pushed the bolt with a washer up from the bottom. Then I put a fedder washer, a lock washer, and a nut tight to the bottom. Then I put another nut with a washer on top.)
I put the rails on top of these bolts and I can raise or lower the rails individually by loosening or tightening the top nut. )
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I put 3 rails on the table. One in the middle, and the other two about 10" from the back of the cradle on either side. FinishedAnd here is the finished table with all the trim added. I put on just enough trim to cover the seems.)
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