There lived a strange race of people... the Druids

Good evening Intertube land! Of course you might not be reading this in the evening, so I trust you can adjust the  salutation to suit your specific circumstances.

So this evening I got the supports for the footrest glued down. Tomorrow I should be able to screw them down to the plywood.  As promised here are some of the pics of the base with the supports in various stages of being clamped and glued. Clamped!

Clamp On!

Clamp Off!

Teh Clamper!!!!1!

The horizontal board and clamp apply downward surface pressure to several vertical supports.  You know, cuase sometimes gravity alone isn't enough. CLAMP! 

Here are the back supports

The back supports are not glued down That will wait until I have the foot rest itself cut out.

Where the dew drops cry and the cats meow

Do you want nifty clamps like those I have pictured here?  I bet you do, and guess what it just happens that Amazon carries them!  I requested they carry them so I could sell them on my blog, and Jeff Bezos wrote me to say that was a "grand idea"!  He offered to let me run the company, but I said that I had too much going on with building this table to run the biggest store on the whole internet.

You don't have your own copy of Spinal Tap on Blue Ray!?!?  Let's fix that, and then you can make stone henge puns in your blog too!

Holding my spot

Went playin for real over the weekend, we wen't over to Tunica stayed at the Horseshoe and split our time between there and The Roadhouse.  Had a great time and brought back some of my own money, so that's all good!

Last night got the supports cut for the foot rest.  Not too exciting, so no pics of those just yet.  Will have some pics Thrusday night when we cut the footrest and begin to assemble the base.

This is the part where I try and sell you stuff, so I can buy my bar stools.  Since I don't have a table related things to sell today I decided to sell stuff I like.

So WMS Gaming makes an excellent slot, Dean Martin's Wild Party - it plays Ain't That a Kick in the Head, Sway, and Go Go Go.  If Dino doesn't make put you in the Vegas mood what will?  Kick start your Essential Dean Martin collection, in the head, with this collection aptly called The Essential Dean Martin Collection - I ordered this for me too!

This trip I took an old fashioned paper book with me, been doing most of my reading on my tablet these days, but I saw this on the shelf and picked it up as I am knee deep in replaying Halo 1-3 and ODST prior to starting on Reach.  Great anthology series, very entertaining.

Next update tomorrow or Friday!  Hopefully get the arm rest upholsterery completed this weekend!  w00t!

Lay down your burden and rest your weary arms.

Construction of the Arm Rest has begun.  The upper and lower arm rest arcs have been cut out.  Currently they are glued and clamped. Tomorrow night I will screw them together and possibly start gluing the foam down, if I am feeling industrious I might do some of the vinyl wrapping on Thursday - but I kind of doubt it.  Wont get to do anything this weekend as I will be visiting the casino's in Tunica MS to get my gamble on :)  So aside from small updates nothing much will happen again until next week!

Cut out pieces

Clamping the bottom arc to the top

I bought a bag of clamps and boy am I glad!

I'm building a boat!

Wood.  Cut.  In the shape of a table.

Oh hey- look what I found some more stuff on Amazon to pimp err um recommend to you.  If you are reading this you should buy something!

Hey it's Gorilla Glue!  It's made from real Gorilla's too, they grind them up when they get to old too race.   Seriously I do love Regular Gorilla Glue, used it to repair a chair and it did an awesome job.  This is my first time using their wood glue, and well my first time working a woodshop type project but I bought their wood glue cause their normal glue rocks!

Hey it's 3M #77 Spray Adhesive!  It's made from real 77's too, they grind them up when they get too old to race.  Okay so it's not as funny the second time around, but this is what I am using to secure the batting and the foam to the table.  Now in all honesty I haven't used it yet - but after I have you can bet I will use the unused portion as hairspray to keep my Elvis doo rocking cause Aquanet is for fools.

And so it begins

Got antsy waiting on my Roatpe to come in from Amazon - so I got my buddy David to help with drawing and cutting out the first of the curved sections.  Didn't expect it to be, it was a bit of a challenge considering the center points for the circles existed well of the plywood pieces, but we managed with some wire and another sawhorse.  Still have a couple more sheets to do prior to beginning construction - so I'm looking forward to putting the beam compass to good work.

Also - gotta say even with a t-square and rulers and the like, drawing the shapes is harder than I expected, trying hard not to skew the sides and trying to get everything to line up and such.  Being a computer guy and a software developer by trade I'm used to things being very precise and accurate, and I wasn't expecting the real world to put up much a fight when it came down to drawing it all out.  Thankfully I had help and extra hand to help,

Not much to see picture wise  this first go round.  This following is the board that will make the base and the top of the armrest.

Base Piece

Using the base to trace the next piece

Wire to measure the arcs with.  Twine had too much stretch to it.

More tracing

Even more tracing

Ooooh look - Here's a link to a Rotape!  You should buy one!  Proceeds go to me buying chairs for my table!

The best laid plans

First off let me open by saying Google Sketchup is mind blowingly awesome tool. Seriously. I can't imagine having begun to plan anything like this table without a tool like this.

The following pics are preliminary plans and a sample render.  Once the project is complete I will post the final sketchup plans to share.

Front View

Rear View

Cut Diagrams

Vertical Section

Horizontal Rib Detail

Horizontal Base Rib Detail

Splitting Aces

With so many differing table designs and so many different approaches to building I have spent more than a little bit of time thinking about what exactly I want from my table.  Most of my house has a craftsman or mission vibe to it, but my rec room where the table will live is a bit more eclectic.  Picture tan and leather colored walls, contemporary sectional seating, a framed scene from the original War of the Worlds, a restored vintage velvet Elvis (rescued from the side of the road), a print of The Beatles at Abbey road, and photos of Frank, Sammy and Dean at the Sands.  Add to that a collection of video game toys and you have my shrine to cool from the 40's to today.   I guess you could call it eclectic meets man cave with a dash or two of never grow up thrown in for good measure.

So first and foremost on top of just having a blackjack table, which is cool by itself, I want my table to reflect a visual sense of cool too.  I'm thinking Art Deco overtones like black lacquer trim with some geometric wood panels overlaying moleskin upholstery.

Attribute wise many of the table plans out there utilize folding legs, or leg solutions that make portability a snap.  Since my table is going to stay where it is at, at least for the foreseeable future so I think I want a more furniture like base. I also want to shoot for the highest degree of accuracy I can with all of the appropriate accessories like a toke box, a no peek device, locking chip tray, etc.

I'm still waffelling a bit on the height and I have yet to settle on table, counter, or bar height - but right now bar height seems like the winner.

On the shoulders of giants

For those of you who don't know me - my name is Brian and I love blackjack.  So one day I am minding my own business surfing around the old interwebs and I happened across Landchark's build your own Blackjack Table posts on his blog.  WOW!  A Blackjack table of my very own?  WANT!  So I start to get excited at the possibilities, I could actually build one of these things.    Next thing you know I'm online and ordering everything I need to make a super authentic table, I'm sketching out plans to build by, I'm buying tools from Home Depot, and to document the process I am starting this blog.

Now I've never built a thing out of wood before, which is odd that somehow I never once had to make a birdhouse as part of my childhood.  I'm hoping that even with no experience that I can rely on my friends and that with their help I can produce something slightly better than Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.  So I've scoured the old tubes here to turn up some of the better resources for building my own blackjack table.

Inspiration!
Now to get the ball rolling, I'd like to recognize and thank the folks who have inspired me to try this.

First and foremost are Landchark and his awesome Blackjack Table -  it was his post and his too cool for words basement, the K2 Lounge that started this craze for me.  Make sure and check out his Craps table and the rest of his sweet basement.

Next up is Assistant Professor of Economics P.J. Healy who posted a guild and links to his own Blackjack Table.  P.J. provides tons of great information, especially on making padded rails, plus he links to many other peoples projects as well.  P.J.'s resources made me believe I could do it too.

Some other tables and plans I've benefited from are Game Of 21's build, and the aptly named buildyourownblackjacktables.com, as well as BlackJack Table Supplies plans.

In my next post I will preview my design and explain what I hope to achieve with my build.  I'll also discuss what I have bought so far and take the opportunity to recognize some of the fantastic people and vendors I have been purchasing from.  I can't tell you how excited I am at beginning to do the build itself next week.

Hit me!
\Brian