The Table Wegs

Back in the early 2000s I discovered an old ping pong table at a garage sale.

It was probably from the 1930s. Unlike the modern tables, this table had oak sideboards and heavy wooden legs. The playing surface was completely covered under a thick coat of green ping pong paint (some kind of wartime rubbery magic coating). It was spacious, sturdy and it was collapsable - how cool! I would have no problem storing it in my garage at all.

And it only cost $25!

Didn't these people know they were sitting on a pot of gold?!?

Upon sight I knew it was the perfect game table for me. I easily envisioned at least 8 players sitting around it - and every one would have plenty of elbow room. Dice could be dramatically thrown down the table just like in craps. I started calculating how I could build some short walls on either end to stop the thrown dice. We could even use if for impromptu craps games - sweet!

I had found the table wegs!

It took me the better part of a summer refinishing this table. First I dismantled the whole thing. I ended up with quite the pile of old wood screws, all of which were custom cut to fit the table. Next I began stripping the oak sideboards and legs. These cleaned up beautifully. The center playing field was a 4x8 sheet of pressed wood of some kind which did not hold up well when I stripped the rubbery magic green coating off it. I ended up having to buy a new insert. Here's where I made my mistake... I opted to go with a really nice sheet of hardwood (1/2 inch thick). I thought it would be better than pressed wood options. Costly little item #1...

Everything re-assembled perfectly, but the folding leg hardware (brass!) had seen better days. I had to replace that with some modern steel ones. Not too happy about that. These weren't too easy to find and were quite expensive. Costly little item #2...

When the table was fully re-assembled, I stained the oak rails. Beautiful. I then stained the center insert - and messed up. I wanted the playing space to be a darker stain to stand-out against the rails. I went too dark though. The effect was unfortunate.

My final mistake was using a heavy polyurethane finish. While it initially looked great, after doing some dice roll tests on the surface I found it was susceptible to chipping. The finish also did not fare well with the flexibility of the table, and cracked at places where the table was joined together with screws.

All said and done, I probably sunk about $250 into the project.

Despite the problems, it's still a cool game table - and in the last 7 years, I've played on it...

ONCE!

But that one game was GREAT!

Confessional: OK. OK. The table is a pain in the butt to move. I can't do it alone. It's also so dang big that I have to bury it against the wall in my garage and lots of stuff gets stacked in front of it. It's anything but accessible. And it doesn't fit in any room of my house - so we can only use it during the summer, if the weather cooperates.

There's a reason why ping pong can only be found at country clubs and rec centers...

And why they have stopped making them out of oak...

Lots of lessons learned - but not one about gaming.