Episode #926
October 31, 2026
My friend is a quilter.
This sometimes requires a large flat table.
In her craft room, there is a foosball table. She asked me if the game table could be made into a work table. The top would have to be easily removable so they could still play foosball.
“A sheet of plywood,” I thought. It should be lightweight, so 1/2” thick. It should be smooth and durable, so 3-4 coats of marine varnish.
The plywood was readily available at Home Depot. Check!
I looked for Spar Marine Varnish at my California Home Depot and found Spar Urethane instead. This might be because of the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in traditional Marine Varnish, which are restricted by the California Health and Safety Code.
I am OK with this type of regulation because I grew up in Southern California. Riding my bike to elementary school, there was a smog-created brown band on the horizon. My eyes stung, and my lungs hurt to breathe.
California did something about that with a gas tax and regulation. We no longer have the severe smog problem we used to have.
So I happily bought the Spar Urethane. It turns out that Urethane dries harder with less off-gassing. This is better for my indoor application.
I measured the foosball table, making sure that the plywood top would overhang the foosball handles. I cut the plywood sheet in my shop. I also rounded the corners, marking the radii lines with my cousin’s invention, Quick Corner templates, and cut the corners with my jigsaw.
Finally, I rounded over the top edges with a router and sanded everything smooth.
My friend’s husband wanted to help, so he painted the plywood with the Urethane. It was beautiful.
With the plywood resting on the foosball table, the work surface was nearly complete. One problem, though. When the edge of the tabletop was leaned on, it would slide around on the foosball table. A project is never over until it is over. How to keep the top from sliding on the table?
I fashioned 3/4” thick wooden cleats with felt tabs facing toward the sides of the table. Using Alien Tape, I attached the cleats to the underside of the plywood around each side of the table. The use of a 1/8” thick shim gave the cleats a small gap from the table. This allowed the plywood to be easily removed and replaced. To ensure the Alien Tape fastening of the cleats, my friend and I turned the plywood over, and I countersunk and fastened the cleats with 1” x #7 self-tapping screws. The length of these screws ensured that they did not penetrate the 1/2″ top surface of the plywood.
In my original measurements and note-taking, I failed to notice cutouts at both ends of the foosball table, which prevented me from centering the cleats at the short ends. My seat of the pants solution was to attach a cleat to one side of each cutout, staggering them diagonally. “Surely that will trap the table,” I thought. I was wrong. Leaning near any corner allowed the tabletop to pivot around the end cleats.
A trip back to my shop generated two more cleats. With cleats on both sides of both cutouts, the rotations were stopped. A project is never over until it is over.
Now my friend has a large, smooth work surface in her craft room, which can be easily removed to play foosball. And the bonus of the project was that I got to work with my neighbor friends.
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