Re: best finish for a foosball table....

[Woodcrafter]

Maybe a couple coats of polyurethane might do the trick?

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Dean Bielanowski Editor, Online Tool Reviews

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Hi, > > Apologies for what is probably a real newbie sort of question, thought > this might be the best place to come for a bit of advice... > > I've just finished abuilding a table football tabloe from scratch > (check it out! - > bit out of date currently I'm afraid...) and am at the stage where I > need to think about finishing... > > The table is built out of plywood, i'm hoping to colour it with a > simple woodstain but I understand that it will need a protecting coat > on top of this. It needs to be really hard wearing and probably > waterproof (or at least beer proof!). I don't want to just cover it in > varnish because it's got to live inside and act as a bit of furniture > as well as a games table.... > > Any advice would be really greatfully recieved :D > > Cheers, > > Chris

[RonB]

Christian - What kind of plywood did you use? Many plywoods including birch or similar veneer plywoods are rather soft and will not take stain evenly unless pre-treated. MinWax pre stain conditioner works well, then apply stain on top, then finish. I built a "thomas"-type train and storage table for my grandson a few months ago. The project used Baltic Birch plywood and the finish process included:

- Sanded with final sanding using 220 Grit

- MinWax pre stain conditioner

- MinWax Natural Stain

- Four coats of wipe on Poly, light sanded every other coat. Very light burnish of final coat with 0000 steel wool to remove dust.

The table is in his room and gets used or sat on daily and is holding up well . Final product looks quite a lot like foosball tables I have seen. See my separate post in "alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking - Train Table" to get an idea of how it looks.

[Rob Walters]

You might also think about using Varathane. A lot of pinball collectors will use it to protect their playfields as it stands up well to the pounding of those metal balls. Three coats of that and some wax should also make the table pretty dern slick.

Rob

[Christian]

Cool - cheers for your help guys! Hopefully it should look pretty awesome and if it stands up ot a good beating even better :D