Gaming Table

We are not master woodworkers. This is the biggest project we have ever attempted. With the help of some Makerspace tools and lots of instructional videos we created something amazing, and you can too!

There are tons of gaming tables available on the market. Many of these have a clean modern esthetic that can match any decor and hide the fact that it is a gaming table. Prices and quality of these tables vary widely; we watched a number of YouTube videos and pieced together a list of our must have table features. For us that was a vault, cup holders and fold out player stations that could also be used as cubbies. We put ours on wheels to make it easier to move around as we reconfigure our game room regularly. Many of these tables just didn't quite match the look we were going for. We wanted something that looked antique, worn, right out of a tavern in Waterdeep. With the right wood, and taking away the carvings, this design can be modified to return it to a sleeker form. Our hope is that we can detail enough of our process that anyone with basic woodworking skills could modify this design to meet their needs.

• 2 sheets of 3/4" 4'x8" plywood.
• About 8 long boards. We used reclaimed wormy American Chestnut wall panels that were about 3/4" thick and a minimum of 6" wide although we used several over 7" wide because of the CNC carvings and wanting to have extra space on the top and bottom.
• 4 Locking caster wheels.
• Figure 8 fasteners to attach legs to table top. Watch this video from Stumpy Numbs for installation tips.
• 12 Hinges for the player stations. Search for fold flat hinges.
• Titebond III wood glue.
• Wood for table leaves. We ended up buying a used table and cutting the top into the size leaves we needed.

Yep, we used Tinkercad. We wanted this design to be accessible to as many people as possible. Using Tinkercad allows those without advanced software knowledge to quickly and easily pick up this design and run with it for their own build.

I cannot stress enough just how much time we spent, and needed to spend in the design phase. Because Tinkercad doesn't have a giant build space I did do everything in a 1/10 scale for the main table design. Spending the time in Tinkercad going over and over the design we were able to identify problem areas, tweak the design as needed and also build the parts we needed to cnc later. Thinking of building your own table? Try making a copy of this design and tweaking to your liking. Most people won't need the 7' length that we wanted. You may not want the player stations or the drink holders and can simply design those out. Tinkercad is a really simple program to use even if you've never built anything in the 3D space before.

To CNC the legs I simply sized them up in Vcarve from the TinkerCad export and laid them out on the plywood. Each leg is 3 layers of plywood thick. We could have had the legs be 4 layers thick and done a more normal half lap joint, but we liked the sort of staggered look and it took less material. After cutting we glued the pieces together and got to sanding.

We wanted to have a small storage slot between our two table legs. The crossbeam also added strength to the build. No hiding screws here, these are so far under the table no one will really notice. While we used the CNC to cut the legs out of 3/4" plywood you could easily build or buy any leg style you want for this table without a CNC. Not pictured here were the caster wheels we simply screwed into the bottom. Pay careful attention to the height of your legs, the height of your chairs and the desired height of your table. Our leg height was designed so that people could use the player stations comfortably while seated, and then the very top of the table is a better height for standing.

We cut the top of the table using a circular saw and some pieces of wood clamped on to keep the saw straight. Our table build has cut off corners. We loved this design feature, it really elevated this table over others that we saw of this size. A smaller table may not need the corners, but it is a nice touch if you want to add it.

We used the CNC for a lot of pieces of this project. There are many other options and it is definitely not necessary to do it this way. We did 3D print each of these designs to be able to test them before implementing them.

The cup holder is admittedly probably too many pieces. These were a pain to CNC, glue up, and sand. But the completed cup holder was definitely worth it.

There are a few important pieces to the hinge design. It is important that the two pieces stacked together was the exact height of the space between the plywood and the top rail. Additionally you want to ensure that the height of the two ends where the hinge will attach is exactly the same height. If it is off by just a little bit your player station will not have a nice even writing surface. We carved out space for the hinge itself in our design. If you do this by hand note the small indentations we made in our design, you will need to route, carve or use a different hinge design to make yours fit.

Make your own copy of this design here.

Next we drew out everything from our design on to the table itself. The bottom piece of the hinge was the first to get glued and screwed. We drilled some pilot holes from the top down through just the table surface first. Then added glue and drilled up into the hinged pieces from below the table. Glue probably would have been enough. These did want to twist on us, the lines we had marked helped us keep them straight. It is very important that your hinge pieces are straight, otherwise they won't open and close well.

After those pieces were down we milled our inner peices to size, clamped and glued those in. We used a Forstner bit at our Dungeon Master seat to make a hole large enough to allow for power and HDMI cord pass throughs to the vault.

We added a few more vertical supports in strategic places to help support the top rails. These were not included in the original design. The placement for these will vary depending upon what you decide to add to your table. We also started to cut some of the top pieces. It is important to note that the top rail does not completely cover the inner box. This allowed us to add leaves to the table later with a small lip to hold them in place.

The CNC faceplates for this table took a lot of trial and error to get the look that I wanted. We are sharing the base design needed for you to replicate the framing style that we used. Because we used a lot of paid models we can't share the completed designs, but have linked below many of the 3D models we did use.

We used the same base frame for each piece, sized appropriately, and traded out the inside designs. There were a significant number of sizes of plates created. Your exact sizing may vary. These were then carved using a 1/4" endmill, an 1/8" ballnose and sometimes a V-groove bit.

Collection of Thingiverse Designs

Vertical Dragon Face from Etsy

Class Pack from Etsy

Dragon Fighting a Knight from CGTrader

Next on the assembly list was getting the hinges just right. Drilling down into plywood was not the best choice we could have made. Given a second chance we would use solid wood for our hinges. The main trouble point here is that the screws wanted to drift slightly and not go in completely straight because of the lamination. This pulled a few hinges off to the side. Overall it still worked, but this was definitely the hardest part of the entire build.

Once the hinges were in place we could glue on the fold out portion of the player station. We added a thin piece of plywood to the underside of our wood so that the plywood would become the writing surface. We did this because our wood was wormy wood, and the holes didn't make for a great writing surface. The stations are just long enough for a sheet of paper. Upon testing this size is working well for us. If all your players bring laptops, dice towers, and books it may not be enough for them.

The faceplates were relatively easy to glue on. We didn't cut the exact width of these until we were ready to assemble. We wanted as tight of a fit as possible. This meant adding a few fractions of an inch here or there. Would definitely recommend slightly oversizing and shaving down. Expert woodworkers might not need this wiggle room, but we definitely did!

Once the hinges were in place we just needed to glue the fold out player station to the hinges.

We used a decorative router bit along all of the top pieces to give it a cohesive look.

For sanding flat surfaces we used an orbital and small hand sander from 80 grid up to 320. The CNC carvings are much harder to sand. We purchased a sanding mop and used that mounted on a drill press for all of the faceplates. It didn't offer a completely smooth finish, but it cleaned up the majority of the problem areas.

After sanding we used Danish oil on all of the wormy chestnut for a natural golden finish. We added a few coats of polyurethane on all of the plywood to better seal those pieces.

We also ordered a 6'x3' neoprene mat to go into our vault once it had dried.

The very last piece of this puzzle is to magnetize the faceplates that cover the player stations when they are closed. This gives the table a finished appearance with continuous carved panels all along the sides. We are still playing around with some options before we commit to this final step.

For the table leaves we went to our local ReStore to look for an older table we could disassemble and use. As luck would have it they had a perfect match for what we needed. We cut the table top into sections and ran those through the planer to get rid of scuffs and old stain.

We ended up using Osmo wax finish in ebony for a quick dark contrast.