Adding Vinyl to a Round Poker Table Rail

Upholstering the Padded Rail of Your Round Poker Table

What We’ll Use In This Step

In this section we will build and upholster your railing.  To accomplish this we will use:

• Drill
• Spray Adhesive
• Handfull of Wood Screws
• Staples
• Staple Gun
• Pieces C and D
• 1″ Foam
• Vinyl

1″ Foam and Vinyl are available in all of our Poker Table Building Kits.

How to Make the Padded Rail

The first thing we will do is assemble the wood.  All you have to do is lay piece C on top of piece D and line up the outer edge.  Then drive a few wood screws through and you will have your frame completed (Figure 3-1).  Now flip the rail over and spray a light coat of spray adhesive on the top of D.  Then you can lay the whole thing down directly on top of your 1″ foam.  Remember sticky side down (Figure 3-2).

Once the adhesive has cured you can trip off some of the extra foam.  For the rail, you don’t want to trim it all the way flush as you did with the playing surface.  Its best to leave about 2″ on the outside and 1″ overhang on the inside of the ring.  This will allow the inside and outside of your rail to be padded along with the top.  Now lay the padded wood down on your vinyl with the nice side of the vinyl facing the floor (Figure 3-3).  You will pull and staple the outer edges of the vinyl, much like you did with the playing surface always being sure to pull out any wrinkles of folds.  Once you get the outside of the ring very tight and well stapled down, you can cut off the extra vinyl and move on to the center of the ring.

The first thing to do here is cut the vinyl in the middle of the padded rail like a pizza.  You will cut several several “slices” each to about 3 inches away from the actual wood (Figure 3-4).

Once your vinyl is all cut, its time to start working on the inside of the ring.  Take your time as this part can be tricky to get just right.  What you need to do is stretch the vinyl inward over the wood and staple it.  You will likely end up with a staple every inch or more on this step.  The easiest way to keep things even is to staple a few inch section on one side and then move over to the opposite side and repeat.  Then you can repeat this step on the other two sides and work your way between them always pulling tight before stapling.  When you’ve made your way all the way around the rail, and are happy with the result, you can cut off the extra vinyl and your rail should like like Figure 3-5 and 3-6.  Remember that it is OK to pull staples out and redo them if you’re unhappy with a section of the rail.  I do this often.

With both the rail and playing surface done, you’re in the home stretch.  The only thing left to do is Step Five – Assembling the Parts.