Foosball Table Quick Fix

My husband came across a foosball table that was being given away for free because the playing field was warped from water damage. He thought “We could fix that” and brought it home. That was three years and two moves ago. It was just one of those projects that we never took the time to do. Well, it was taking up room in my new woodshop, room that I need very much for a new miter saw table, so we decided to tackle the foosball table project and get it out of my shop!

I started by flipping the table upside down and resting it on the already detached legs. It was important to have it raised off the ground so that the players wouldn’t get damaged.

Next, I unscrewed the bolts that we holding metal rod supports in underneath the playing field, and unscrewed the five screws on each end of the field. This was all that was holding the field on and was incredibly easy. I had to remove one of the black plastic goal boxes as well, but again, it was just a few screws. I then pulled the playing field board out of the frame. There ended up being a little damage to the corner, but overall it came out easily.

Now, we didn’t want to put a ton of money into this table. A new playing field costs about $100-150 and we just didn’t feel it was worth it. The rest of the table is definitely sturdy and level, but it’s not high quality, so we wanted to find a fix that would be completely smooth and level, but not cost much. After all, it would just be a fun activity for our kids who are still young enough that there’s no guarantee there won’t be more water damage in the near future! Ha! So, we sorted through a few ideas, and decided on an MDF board. We had the hardware store cut it to the size we needed (we could have done this ourselves but why not just make it easier to transport, right?)

Alright, so we tried to figure out a way to add the details. I was thinking I’d cut some vinyl with my Silhouette Cameo, but then quickly realized that it would add lines to the playing surface and it would no longer be perfectly flat. Next we thought we could paint it, but I was worried my acrylic paints would possibly cause the painted areas of the MDF to raise up. So, our last idea was to just use permanent markers to draw on all the details. We measured all the lines from the old playing field.

The fun thing about this is that we had our kids come in and color their own artwork on the field. They’ve had a few friends over who have also signed their names on the field and they plan to have all their friends sign it from here on out. It’ll be a fun momento of the years going by.

Once the drawing was done, we placed the board. We did have to cut one tiny piece out of a corner in order to get it past a couple of the corner supports, but this cut ended up being beneath the frame anyway, so it didn’t matter at all. We added some wood supports with my Kreg jig.

We opted not to use the same supports that came with the original table because it would have taken a bit more work and money. For our purposes, these supports will work fine for the time being.

All done! We then put different supports underneath the table, and reattached the legs. Had we been smart, we would have moved the table to where it would be before attaching the legs, as it was quite difficult to get it through the doorway. Live and learn, right? Anyway, we made it and the table was perfectly level! We really love it and my son has played with anyone that will play against him since it has been up. So far it works perfectly and it only cost us about $10! Can’t beat that!