How to Cover a Poker Table Rail

This page is dedicated to anyone attempting to create their own padded rail and want the fabric seam and wrinkle free. I have a larger poker group and needed to build two poker tables. The first had minor wrinkling but the second turned out much better using this method. Here is a photo of the rail on my “second attempt” table. I want to thank PC Potato, homepokertourney.com, and Scott Keen’s forum and members in that forum for all the help in getting me this far.

A few initial notes: It really helps to have an assistant. It is much easier if you have one person stapling and one person pulling on the fabric. Also, I found that working from the apex of the turns first makes the rail wrinkle free. When building my first table, I saved that for last knowing how difficult it would be which resulted in some minor wrinkles.

Please excuse my goofy little hand drawn pictures. I am not an artist, nor am I an upholsterer, or a carpenter, or a woodworker…. Hmmmm…. Strange why I even thought I could pull this project off.

One more thing, I have a website for our poker group that contains news, photos, rules, etc if you would like to check it out it is www.wheelingpokerclub.com. If you feel this webpage has helped you please make a small donation. Thank you!

Step 1

First thing you need to do is find a large space to lay your fabric face down. You will need enough fabric to cover the length and width of the entire table with excess for stapling and such. Make sure there are no wrinkles. Now, lay your rail frame face down onto the fabric. See below for my first pathetic drawing. For easier reading the fabric color is burgundy and the rail frame is grey.

Step 2

Now you are ready to staple. Start at the peak of one of your turns. Work your way to each side. The key to this part is to bunch excess fabric towards the most recent staple. You want to keep the fabric as flat to the edge as you can around the turn. Slight wrinkles around the edge are fine as the top will remain wrinkle free. Repeat the process for the other turn. Now you can staple up the straightaways along the sides. Keep in mind that you need to make the fabric taut. See below for diagram showing what I mean by bunching the excess.

How it should look when complete.

Step 3

Now the fun begins. You first need to cut out the middle of the fabric leaving enough excess for stapling.

Step 4

The fabric will not curve around the turns without some help. You will need to cut the fabric to allow it to wrap around the inside turns. Be sure not to cut too far to expose the foam on the inside. I put a mark every so many inches to indicate how far to comfortably cut.

Step 5

Now starting from peak of the middle of the turn, pull each piece of cut fabric and staple working your way to the straight section. I did one half of the arc then the other half. Repeat on the other side. Now the easy part, staple the straight-aways. Trim the excess fabric and viola your rail is complete.

Step 6

Flip over your masterpiece as you should now have a wrinkle free rail!!!