Dining/Game Table - #22 Fitting & Punching the Pad, Scaling up & Testing Stain

With the pad finally in hand I could start working with it.  It came as a 51” X 83” sheet of which I needed about 44” X 55”.  Unfortunately, it came with only one fairly straight edge and was not square.  I was hoping for 2 good edges and at least one square corner but nope, not the case.  Before I started cutting the pad I checked on-line to see what the suggested cutting method was.  Only real information I found was on the use of an 100 watt industrial carbon dioxide laser.  That might be just a little overkill for me so I tried scissors and they worked just fine.  I started by straightening the best long edge then squaring the sheet and cutting it a couple of inches oversize.  To get a straight edge I used my 8’ level, marked it with a white pencil then cut with a pair of scissors. 

Marking a Straight Edge

It took some time to fit the playing surface/pad to the MDF base.  Not because it was particularly complex but because I was being very careful and double checking my measurements.  I had only one chance to get it right and if I cut it too small there is no patching you just start over with a new $100 blank.

Here is the pad cut to size sitting on the MDF base.  I left a small tab on one corner so I could tell which face was up and as a reference mark to set in a specific corner.  The pad is a little bumpy around the edges as the adjustment screws are holding it up.  It will lay flat after I punch a bunch of holes for them.

Pad Cut to Size

There are 66 holes to punch and I needed them pretty accurately located for the pad to lay flat.  My first attempt was to use a thin piece of wood with holes drilled at the center point then marking them out with a white pen.  All that got me was a blob of White-Out on the pad.

White-Out Marking Test

Second attempt was to drill a hole the size of the punched hole in a thin piece of wood, locate it in place, set the punch in the hole and whack it with a hammer.  Because the punch is taper ground and I could not compress the pad much all that got me was a split piece of wood.  A larger hole would have prevented the wood from splitting but would not give me the accuracy I wanted.

Punching Through Wood Template

Third time was the charm.  I substituted a scrap piece of mat board for the wood then used the punch to make the hole.  Using that as an accurate template I put it on a test piece, set the punch in the hole and gave it a good whack with the hammer.  Result was a nice clean hole in the pad and a conical hole in the mat board that acted to center the punch in the right place.   For production, only change is to add a thin oak backer to prevent me from punching a shallow hole in the MDF.  Here is the oak backer, template, pad and structural sub-base.

Setup for Punching Holes

Here everything is ready to go.  The oak backer is under the pad, the template is aligned with the edge of the pad and centered on the hole in the MDF.  I know it looks shifted a little to the left but that’s because the photo is taken a little off-center.

Ready to Punch Holes

All I had to do was set the punch in the template guide hold firmly in place and whack it with the hammer.  Result is three clean aligned holes.  Only 63 more to go.

3 Holes Done 63 to Go

With all the holes punched I could move the pad into place.  Here is what it looks like close up.  The screw heads are slightly below the pad surface per the testing done in Post 12.  The center hole is for the long #8 X 2½” screws I installed in Post 13 to lock the structural support, MDF and inner rail together. 

Pad Set In-Place Over Screws

Stepping back the pad is now under just a little tension and pulled nice and flat.  The pad can now be taken off and put away in a safe place until it’s ready for final installation.

Pad Competed & In-Place

I can now do the final bit of disassembly.  The MDF comes first after I remove the 100 screws holding it on.  Last to come apart is the sub-structure that supports the MDF.   There is only one bit of wood work left.  Back in Post 13 I found that the first couple of long #8 X 2½” screws did not bite into the inner rail as much as I thought they should so I counter sunk a couple of them another 3/8” into the structural support which helped tighten things up.  To make sure I did not forget to drill the rest I stuck this note next to the ones I had re-drilled.  

Note so I Don't Forget

After drilling the remaining holes I was finished with all the wood working.  Here are all the parts and pieces that go into the table except for the pad.

One Game Table Some Assembly Required

When I was doing all the initial testing to get a stain color I was doing it in tablespoon batches.  This was fine for tests but not practical for doing the whole table.  I am going to scale it up to a cup or 16 times the original mix.   Here is chart of how that plays out.

Process I use is to gather all the materials and sit at the bench to measure out them out.  The photo below is my setup.  For a solvent I can use either water or denatured alcohol.  I use alcohol since it won’t raise the grain when applied.  The glass measuring cup next to the can of alcohol is used to measure the alcohol.  I use that to rinse out the dye measured in the small plastic cup in the center of the photo into the larger mix jar in the center with a blue lid.  At this point I have all the dyes in the mix jar except for the red.

Stain Mixing

Sometimes scaling up a mix is not always linear so after I finished the mix I made a test piece complete with a couple coats of finish to compare against the original.  It is a really good match perhaps just a slight bit darker but then that may be due to the piece of oak it went on. 

Scaled-up Stain Sample & Original Test Pieces

I did one last test using a large cutoff from the table top itself and at first glance it looked great. 

Stain Test on Table Top Scrap

However, when I looked closer I could see that some of the pores in the oak were not stained.  They are the elliptical areas that are a lighter color.  The lighter color is where the three coats of lacquer had mostly filled the pores.  My guess is they are so narrow that the surface tension in the stain mix keeps them from being stained.  This is not usually a problem because I don’t normally apply a stain this dark and any pores that have no stain blend in.  For reference the lines at the bottom of the photo are my ruler and are 1/16” apart.

Problem with Stain & Pores

I looks like I still have some work to do before I can really start on the actual finish work.  While thinking about how to proceed I will do a major clean-up in the shop dusting and vacuuming as much as reasonably possible to keep dust out of the finish.

Next Up – Resolving Stain Problem & Starting the Finishing