Building a home Poker Table

[samjjones]

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Yeah, I wanted to get a big, ole' wooden compass, like our geometry teacher used on the chalk board. After finally finding one, it wasnt big enough.

I made my own, by using two yard sticks, with a hole drilled in their centers, and a nut/bolt for the axis, and a pair of vice-grip pliers to hold them at a constant position.

This worked better than the length of twine and a screw method.

NEXT TIME : I plan on using a single yardstick, flat on the plywood. It will have small hole in its center at one end. This is to accomodate the screw, which is placed at the common center for the circle arcs.

Then, at various lengths, drill smaller holes which will just accomodate a pencil lead. Rotate it, and you have a perfect, constant, smooth arc. different radii for inner, and outer rail circumferences.

When using two pieces of plywood (one for the table, and one for the rail), it is imperative that you start by lining them up, clamping them tight, and drilling that center hole for the arc through BOTH boards at the same time.
Then everything else will line up perfectly.

Aces,
doc

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Yep, this is pretty much what I ended up doing. I didn't have a yard stick, but I had a think piece of plastic molding that was about 3 feet long. I drilled a hole in it, drove a screw into the hole at the center of my radii, and then drilled another hole 24" away. Perfect circles. Then used a piece of board to draw the straight edges connecting my arcs. Just wish I could actually do a straight line with the jigsaw, but that's another matter [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]