DIY Air Hockey Table

Step 3: Drilling holes / preparing playing surface

F: Before drilling holes, you'll need to make a grid on the MDF. You can either mark the 25mm squares (1 inch squares) you self with a ruler. But if you get sick of measuring you could use the grid template provided on the bottom of the page. Then draw a bigger grid, in which the templates fit. Simply stick the template to the surface.

G: Drill the holes according to the grid you've just created. Use a dremel and drillbits with a diameter of 1mm (or 1/32 inch) to do the drilling. This job is time consuming, but do not rush. Otherwise you'll break a lot of drill bits.

In total we drilled 96x48=4608 holes, breaking 3 drill bits.

H: Use a sanding machine to remove the burrs on the other side of the sheet. This side will become your playing surface. First sand the surface down with rough paper. Then smoothen it further with fine sand paper. Make sure that the holes are free from waste.

Comments

[Mundy101]

what sort of drill did you use. would the holes be straight every time, or would it not matter that much if they were not exactly straight

[Evox_Rider]

If you have a Dremel tool, there is an optional add-on plunge router attachment for the Dremel. Would make drilling perfectly straight holes a snap. Could even set up a guide bar to rest the edge of the router to...

[Mundy101]

Thats exactly what i ended up doing. Took about 10 hours though :(

[frollard]

Really you could drill the holes at all different angles so long as there were enough evenly spaced and enough airflow to get the puck to float. Off angle holes will make the puck wander when not hit. 'wander' will have a very negligible effect when you're talking with a 'shot' puck.

[casvandegoor]

I used a dremel with 1mm (or 1/32 inch) diameter drillbits. Drilling by hand will give holes that are straight enough.

[Turkey1Budicek]

Excellent Instructable! My two boys (aged 9 and 10) and I built a similar table about 35 years ago from information that was in (probably) Popular Mechanics. We just demolished it because the son that had inherited it was moving and couldn't get it out of his basement. Some suggestions that I might add - Use a sheet of pegboard clamped to the playing surface instead of laying out the holes. They drilled the holes using (I believe) a 1/16" drill bit in a 1/4" drill bushing, centering the bit in the pegboard holes. Drill from the top or playing surface. Use Formica or similar for the playing surface. We used some lower cost plastic laminate and it started to show wear after 20 years of playing. We used a squirrel cage blower from Grainger Electric. This table got an awful lot of use over it's 35 year life by our sons and grandkids!

[applesaucemodifier]

How did they get it into the basement?

[Turkey1Budicek]

Four husky teenagers were able to fold the legs on the table and drop it down a two-level stairwell. 
We demolished it because there was no one else that wanted it.  Remember, the kids that had built it initially were now 35 years older!

[themaker321]

 they built it in there

[weasel999]

they sell this maysonite at home depot that has holes in it u can use as template

[mjdinsmore]

You might want to use a cabinet scraper as well to give a nice clean, smooth surface.

[casvandegoor]

I'm not sure. Isn't the cabinet scraper for leveling a wood surface, instead of smoothening. The MDF I was using was already quite smooth, I sand it down to get it even smoother. Hardboard I spotted in a hardware store did have a very rough surface. Is this the type of surface you mean?

[mjdinsmore]

You can use a #5 or perhaps a #4 plane for leveling. A cabinet scraper is for smoothing.

[Jarp Habib]

Cabinet scrapers and hand planes aren't particularly effective on engineered wood like MDF, particleboard and hardboard. Save 'em for actual wood, use a sander on the engineered stuff.

[Eddiepers]

really fine sandpaper on a finish (palm) sander would work

[Andyman3k]

If you want it smooth enough, you'd want to use 400 - 2000 grit sand paper for final finish.

[jeff-o]

4608 holes! How long did that take?

[casvandegoor]

I believe that I drilled about 25 holes per minute. So in total it took me about 180 minutes (non stop). But marking the grid on the surface also took some time. I guess about An hour and a half extra.

[scook]

Great job, I really like it. Oh my 4608 holes, you must be very patient.

[jeff-o]

That's not so bad I guess.