Measuring and Cutting your Rail

Now we didn't want to deviate too much from Junell's plans, so we decided to measure as close to his plans as possible. 

Take one of your "not nicer" pieces of wood, and measure a four (4) inch cut inside.  Measure this all the way around the material.  This is going to be your rail.  If you want a larger or smaller rail, make any adjustments necessary.

As you can see we simply used a pencil to mark our cuts. 

A t-square is helpful here, but a simple ruler would do the same trick. 

After measuring we just used a jig saw to cut out the rail.  You'll want to make sure you have a buddy to hold up the rail as you cut it out.  The more you cut, the more weight will be unsupported.  The last thing you want is to have your race track break or fall as you finish cutting it.

Start your cut on the inside of your line.  It doesn't really matter as any wood left over will unfortunately be scrap. 

You can probably use some clamps if they reach far enough. 

Here you can see the cut out for the rail.  Again, your cut doesn't have to be perfect.

Here Cory is cutting the 1.5 inch piece from our "good" piece of wood that will attach to the piece cut out above.

Now, an important note:  Do not drill inside to start your jig saw cut.  This piece of wood is your nicer material that will be used for your race track.  You do not want any imperfections inside your measurements.

Simply make a starter table inside your 1.5 inch line around the table.  Then use that to jig saw all the way around.

Again support is needed to make sure you don't break part of your rail frame as you get farther along in the cutting

The cuts don't need to be perfect, but try not to deviate too much from your measurements. 

Most of the piece that is left over will be your actual playing surface, so you don't want many imperfections in that.  What you're doing here is just going to be a piece of the rail. 

Once Cory and I cut out the two pieces, we glued and screwed (but didn't tattoo) them together. 

On the pic below we have our rail pieces up side down. 

We used a line of wood glue and then clamped both pieces together. 

For added stability we used some 1.25 inch screws around the rail frame.

You can use as many as you want, but don't over do it.  This piece will be covered by a layer of foam as well as a layer of vinyl.  This is where your company is going to rest their elbows, and will be 100% unseen by your players.

We used about 3-4 on each side, and 1-2 on the arcs of the wood. 

Wipe away any glue that is seeping out, and let it dry for about an hour or so.

Here's another angle of our rail as it's drying. 

Here's a close up of our rail frame. 

The 4" cut piece of wood is in the middle (on top of a scrap piece of wood), and our 1.5" piece is on top.

Notice that the cuts aren't perfect, and they won't be as they came from two different pieces of wood.  Try to match them up as perfect as possible.  If they're not 100% centered and flush, don't worry about it. 

You might want to spend five minutes and run some sand paper over the edges and along the top of your cut outs.  Don't spend any major time on this part, as it'll all be covered by foam and vinyl.   You just don't want any blatant splinters sticking up that may potentially snag your fabric later.