Cutting out your Cup Holders

Here we are starting the cutting our cup holder holes.

Start off by placing your finished rail upon your race track.  Your markings should match up, and it should fit without too much trouble.  Lay your cup holders out with your rail on top of your race track.

Simply trace out a circle of where you want your holders to be.  You might have to "eye" it on your race track before you cut.  It's just a matter of trial and error before you find everything aligned. 

Junell said he used a jig saw for his work, but frankly that idea didn't appeal to us. 

First of all, a jig saw takes a lot more time and effort, and we didn't have 6 hours to cut out holes when a drill and circular saw bit could do the job in a matter of minutes.

If you don't have the firepower available, you can rent a 120 volt drill (seen to the left) for about $24 a day from Home Depot or Lowes.  (your standard drill won't have enough juice)

The saw I got was a 3 and 5/8 inch circumference.  A perfect fit for our holes.  The bit that attaches was a 6L from Lowes, and cost about $16.  I believe the saw attachment was just over $15. 

Expensive, maybe.  But well worth the time spent.  (or so we thought).

Here I am starting the first hole. 

The only suggestion I can offer is try a few practice holes in any scrap you have laying around.  You don't want to scratch up your race track as it's going to be blatantly visible when you put your table back together.

Hold the damn thing steady and try to saw into your wood (heh) at a perpendicular angle. 

It will probably take a few tries before you find out what speed the drill, saw and wood all work best together.

Just go around your table, and working on one hole at a time.

Here's a pic of the completed race track with all cup holder slots cut out.

Obviously it's covered in saw dust but you get the idea of what kind of spacing you're looking at.

Cory just wanted to hold some wood in his hand, so I obliged.

Then I took this pic of him holding some of the scrap from the cup holder cut outs.

We then took the baseboard and put our now cut race track on top.

After a careful alignment check, we traced out our cup holder holes.  Then continue to saw out the holes in the same fashion as you did for the race track.

You have plenty of room for error on this piece, as it will never be visible to your guests.  The baseboard just needs some cutouts as well so the holders will glide into your completed table without any problem.  We also trimed off a the edge which was also traced from our race track.  This way our table will look flushed when put together.

Now a word of Caution:

We purchased a hole saw (with a brand name that starts with an L) for our drill, and 6L bit attachment.  I can't say enough how you need to stay away from that brand if you want to cut your holes in the same method we did.  The damn thing wouldn't stay on our drill after a few holes.  We looked and tried to tighten the bit, but the damn pegs would not stay attached to our saw. 

Okay, fine.  Maybe it was a fluke.  So we took the entire unit back and exchanged for the same product brand new.  This time we got through maybe five holes (out of forty).  Go with Black and Decker.