COOLEST DIY Bottle Cap Beer Pong Table With Resin
What I Bought:
2: 4ft x 2ft x 1/2in plywood
3: 1in x 3in x 8ft for trim (2: 8 ft sides & 2: 2 ft sides with some scraps for mistakes)
3: 2in x 3in x 8ft for the legs (6: 34 in legs ended up cutting down later which left us with enough spared for bracing each set of legs)
8: .375in x 4in x 4 ft reclaimed wood slabs (for decorative outer trim & triangles)
3: gallons of resin
1: super glue
1: 50ft extension cord
1: 20 ft strip of led lights with remote
1: wood conditioner
1: wood stain: Special walnut
1: polyurethane-clear satin
1: painters tape
Total Cost: ~300 (resin is a pretty penny)
Frame & plywood: 30
Resin: 145
Lights: 23 off amazon
Decorative wood: 30
Extension cord: 12
Poly, wood conditioner, stain: 34
What I Had:
LOTS BOTTLE CAPS & a cool idea
What my father had:
Skill
Nail gun (1 1/2 & 3 in nails)
Drill (drilling pilot holes & putting in 1 5/8in & 3 in screws when possible)
Various saws
Level
CLAMPS
Wood glue
Problems:
TABLE & FRAME
I will admit most the problems were due to my lack of wood working knowledge & resolved by my awesome dad. I didn’t wait for him to accompany me to the store to show me what to get (which I should have) because of my impatience & a little bit of pride. I accidentally bought when I even asked him prior if it would be a good idea to use it which he replied no it’s of poorer quality & not meant for what your doing. Dummy me didn’t know that it was that when I bought it so we hade to fix some bowing up & down as well as coming out away from the table with the 8 ft trim. So don’t skimp out on quality wood people it’s worth the extra pretty pennies.
I also didn’t wait for him to cut the wood so I cut exactly 24 inches for the 2ft trim side of the table not thinking I needed an extra inch added on each end of the table to cover over the 8ft trim to make a nice corner (my twin tried to tell me but once again... pride.) so we trimmed an inch or so off the end of one of the ends of the table so the 8ft sides would come over each end of the 24 inchers to make a nice corner.
My dad also pointed out if we had nailed some extra boards under the plywood along where we would have put the trim or created a more solid frame it would have been much easier to add the trim & would have a more solid base for the plywood especially with the resin being added.
Don’t skimp on the width of your plywood especially if your adding extra weight! It’s only a couple bucks more for the thicker plywood.
RESIN
Prior to pouring the resin I did not glue down the bottle caps because someone who had done a similar project said it was not needed. Unfortunately while pouring the resin, many of the bottle caps tried to float to the surface so I spent a lot of time with a pin going down the table & pushing all the caps down to the bottom until the resin was tacky enough to keep them in place.
I also didn’t have enough resin to completely flood over the bottle caps. I already suspected this would happen as I found the volume of a gallon of resin was 260 sq inches & my table was (16in x 96in x .25in) 384 sq in (minus 60 sq inches for the triangles) giving us 320 sq inches which is much above what the volume of the resin could cover. I left it the way it was as resin is expensive & more can always be added if we feel it’s needed. I ended up using 3 gallons or resin on the table and had some spots that weren’t covered due to some spillage. I went back in and tried to fix them without recovering the whole table and it is noticeable but this table is going to be put through some abuse, so I don’t see it as a huge issue.
What I Wanted To Do But Didn’t:
I wanted to buy LED lights to line the decorative trim of the inner side against the bottle caps. Then when I flooded the table with resin they would be submerged with the bottle caps. I wanted to get the smart LED lights that could connect to a smart speaker like Alexa or google assistant but they were like A HUNDRED DOLLARS! which was outrageous. Instead I bought 20 feet of non “smart” LED lights from amazon for a lot cheaper & knowing my mans, he won’t use the smart Amazon Echo feature anyway
I also wanted to make it a folding table with folding legs that was in two pieces on a hinge but then I realized if people want a beer pong table to go somewhere they can just get a cheap dumpy one & not risk breaking this one that I put in all this work for. It would also sacrifice the sturdiness of the legs & a lot of other people had issues with the folding legs of their diys giving out.