2011年9月6日火曜日

The FOOOOOOOSBall TABLE: A family project

It was a rainy Saturday and we had nothing to do for a few hours.














My son picked up a broken toy wood xylophone that we were planning to throw away and said,

"Let's make something with this."

"What do you want to make?"

"A soccer game. See Dad, these wood things are the guys."

"OK...and we can use that empty clothing case..."


That got our brain gears turning on what turned out to be a two day project.


Drawing the characters was the easy part. To start off, Mom, Dad, Michael and Mei (with help) each drew one.

But how are we going to connect the guys to the poles?


Off to J-Mart, our local DIY store. We got a bunch of 90mm x 20mm stainless steel plates with 3mm holes (45yen each) to bend around the poles and screw onto the wood players. And we needed green felt for soccer turf...and a 20mm diameter drill bit for the holes...and a pack of 3mm x 10mm screws...and a few more 15mm diameter x 600mm poles and we were in business. About 3000yen altogether.

And 500yen to rent an industrial impact drill with enough torque to open 20mm holes through the plastic box. I tried my own old B&D 12V home use drill and it started spewing black smoke! The motor fried. Oh well, it was almost ten years old and I I needed a new one anyway.

At this point, Megumi kindly pointed out that it may be cheaper to just buy a Foosball Table on Amazon. Yes, this is true, my love, but we are making a special one-of-a-kind foosball table. And J-Mart loves our business. 



























Michael did a great job on taping the lines and with decorating the players as well as sawing the board and poles, hammering in nails, drilling the holes, screwing on the metal strips. Mei and Megumi helped by drawing the characters. We have some good nadeshiko members on the field.

The player pieces made from xylophone keys are all different sizes, so the poles can't be spun like real foosball, but it works well enough.

As final touches, we need some nets for the goals and some handles and stoppers on the poles...and a scoreboard. We'll work on those.

















All done! Time for some family foosball!

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