Magician's TV-Table

For this instructable, I' re-purposed an old wooden TV table into a magician's table, with a velvet top and a golden rope trim. It looks very elegant, offers an excellent surface for card tricks, and folds flat for travel. .

• Hot glue gun
• Felt padding
• Rope trim
• Velvet fabric
• Corrugated plastic (Plastic signs might be cheaper than blank material)
• Spray adhesive
• Scissors
• Box cutter
• Screwdriver

You'll need to unscrew the table's board from its base. This board has rounded edges on top, and square edges on the bottom. Because these square edges will line up flush with the felted surface we're about to prepare, we'll be flipping the board upside down, so that the original bottom will now be the top.

Place the side of the board with the rounded corners against the corrugated plastic, trace the contour, and cut it out. You should now have a piece of plastic that lines up perfectly with the board. Trim about half an inch from both sides of the plastic, while maintaining the corners of the plastic with approximately the same curve as the board.

Using spray adhesive, glue the plastic to the padding. Then, trim the excess padding from around the plastic. Then cut a piece of fabric that is about 2 inches larger than the padded plastic on all sides. Glue the padded plastic to the bottom of the fabric using spray adhesive. Make sure that the padded plastic is centered on the fabric when you do this.

Once the fabric has been glued to the padded side, pull the edges over tight and stick them to the bottom using a hot glue gun. When you do this, the corners will bunch up and cause problems. One solution I'd attempted was to cut tabs into the corners, providing enough fabric to grip the bottom, while eliminating lots of excess material. When you try to pull these tabs in, the rounded corners will take on a more "hexagonal" appearance. My solution was to twist the tabs, giving the corners a more rounded appearance.

I cut long strips of fabric folded them over, and glued them with a hot glue gun.

I glued this trim along the edge of the board. This will act as a layer between the board and the surface that will be stuck on later. For the corners, I found it helpful to cut slits into the inside of the trim to prevent bunching.

I glued the gold trim along the edge of the bottom of the cloth surface.

Then, I used a hot glue gun to combine both halves together into a single tabletop.

Now, we screw the board back onto the table legs. But since the board is now upside down, I had to drill new holes for the screws.

The table is complete and ready for performance. A simple used TV-table has been converted into an elegant and useful performance prop.