The padded rail is, simply put, the most important part of a poker table. It makes or breaks it. You can have the nicest custom cloth, casino style pedestal legs with the chrome foot rail, custom chips, all the bells and whistles, and if you don't have a nice rail, nothing else matters. It's one of the first things you see and if there are flaws in it, your attention will be drawn to them. So, take your time, be patient, and you will love the results of a well built rail.
I learned a lot on the first rail I did, most of which is pictured here, however I soon realized that I needed to "rework" the rail shortly after it was complete. (which is why you'll see pictures from the first, and the reworked rail of my first table) As I started building more rails, I modified my original process of cutting the foam, and pulling and stapling the vinyl, to get the uniform look I was after. First comes the foam. There are 3 different basic schools of thought for cutting the foam for your rail.
1) Cut a top piece and two side pieces as I did.
Results: Good, but can be improved, (read on)
2) Cut the foam from one single sheet.
Results: Better, but wastes a lot of foam.
3) Cut the foam a few inches wider than your rail. The overhang will work for the indise and outside edges.
Results: In my opinion, the best option. All the rails I build now follow this process. Minimal (if any) waste, uniform looking and easy to work with.
I used the "green foam" from Jo-Ann's fabrics, which is 1" thick and comes in sheets, 6' long by 30" wide. For my first rail, I cut a piece, 4" wide for the top of the rail, and then two additional pieces to cover the inside edge and the outside edge. I've since changed this process and now only cut one piece which is wider, for both the top, inside, and outside edge as shown in the images below.
This picture shows the first rail I did where I cut the individual top and side pieces:
Rails I build now, I use one piece of foam which is cut wider. The width is figured on the width of the rail (4") plus the inside edge (1") plus the outside edge (2") to equal a 7" wide piece of foam. I glue the foam to the wood rail and the foam naturally bends around the corners when you are pulling and stapling the vinyl. It's a good idea to get some help from someone to hold one end of the foam strip when you are gluing it down and working it around the corners.
Once that is complete, roll your vinyl out, face down and center your rail on it
Now comes the fun part. Stapling the vinyl to the rail. The best thing I've found that works pretty well is to position yourself inside the wood rail, kneeling on the rail with either my knee or my foot to compress the foam in the rail, while pulling the vinyl snug and stapling. What I've found is that compressing the foam, then stapling, will allow the foam to expand and give a uniform round look to it when complete.
You will want to work with about 4" sections at a time, moving around the outside edge until the curve is complete. When complete, go to the other end of the rail, and repeat the process for the opposite end. With both ends complete, follow the same process and staple along the straight portion of the rail.
The following image, shows the pattern I follow when stapling the vinyl for a rail.
Depending on the how pliable your vinyl is, you may have some small wrinkles in the rail, which you can easily fix. The fix these, take a flat head screwdriver and pull the staples out around the area where the wrinkle is. Compress the foam, pull the vinyl and staple again. There are typically a few spots on both ends which you will need to rework to get the wrinkles out.
When you are done stapling the outside, you should have something that looks like this.
Next, take your razor blade and make the needed cuts on the inside of the rail.
One you have the vinyl cut, follow the same steps as you did for the outside to staple the inside edge, again compressing the foam, pulling tight and stapling.
After working out the wrinkles and "fine tuning" the rail, this was my finished rail, on the table.
