Building an Octagon Poker Table Railing

Building and Upholstering the Rail for an Octagon Poker Table

Assembling the Rail

Before we can upholster your rail, we have to assemble the thing.  To do this we will use both outer rings from our original octagons.  Pieces C and D.  All you have to do is lay C on top of D and make sure the outer edges line up.  If all of your cuts were true, the rail should line up no matter what way you set it together.  Unfortunately, in the real world, this is almost never the case.  Its best to simply spin the top piece (C) around until you get the best fit.  Then just drive a few 1 1/4″ screws in to keep everything together (Figure 3-1).

Once the wood is secure, you will need to lay your 1″ foam on a flat surface.  Now spray the flat side of piece D (not the side that C is screwed to) with the remainder of your spray adhesive and lay it down on top of your foam making sure that it is centered (Figure 3-2).

• 1″ foam and vinyl are included in all of our 4′ Poker Table Kits

With your foam secured to the wood frame, you can start to trim the extra foam away.  For the rail, I like to keep between 2 and 3 inches on the outside and abour 1 inch overhang on the inside.  This allows for the rail to be padded all the way around once the vinyl is stretched over it.  With the foam trimmed, you can lay the padded wood down on your viny (Figure 3-3).  You will upholster the outside of the rail the same way as the playing surface.  First starting to staple on one side and then moving to the other side to pull tight and staple.  On the railing you are likely to need quite a few more staples as you will have to continue to pull and staple to work out all of the folds and wrinkles in the vinyl.

With the outside of the octagon rail completed, its time to move on the the fun part.  To start working on the inside of the padded rail, you will first have to cut the unneeded fabric, on the infield, into a pie shape (Figure3-4).

These cuts will allow you to stretch the vinyl over the inside edge of the rail and get some staples in.  It is best to leave a few inches between the end of your cuts and the edge of the rail.  If you end up needing a deeper cut you can always cut it more.  Once you have pulled the vinyl very tight and stapled it all the way around, you should flip the rail over to make sure that you’re happy with how it looks.  If you are, flip it back over and cut off the extra vinyl.  You will now have a complete rail (Figure 3-5 and 3-6).

Now you’re in the home stretch.  You have the rail and playing surface upholstered and you can finally move on to Step Five – Assembling the Table Top.