Poker Table: Day 2

I woke up this morning and decided to try a little bit of sanding with my palm sander. The jigsaw cuts were decent but not perfect. After some deliberation I decided to try and build a jig for my router to make the circle cuts nice and smooth. I haven't really used my router much and I was a little hesitant about trying to make a jig for it. Also didn't want to buy one because I am trying to keep the costs low for this project. With a little help from some router jig references I decided to give it a shot. I had some spare 3/4" ply that I ripped from the full size sheets that was the perfect width. I removed the base plate from my router and used that as a template for the mounting holes. I cut a 2" hole for the router bit to pass through and measured out the radii that I would need for the table . It looks like everything lines up very well with the curves that I already cut with the jig saw so I think I'll be able to use the router for everything else. I don't think it will makes things any faster but it should be a lot more precise...I like precise!

After work I actually had a chance to use the router jig. It was pretty successful. I did have one bit of oversight and measured on the wrong side of the router bit which made my rail cut 1/4" off. I am not going to worry about it...I think it will be fine.

So total progress for today includes building a router jig, cutting all of the pieces to ovals and starting on the 4" (actually 3 3/4") rail piece.

Here are a few shots of the oval pieces...with some closeups before sanding.

Here are a few shots of the router circle jig. Pretty simple. I'll get some pics of it installed later.