It all started Freshman year of college, maybe two weeks into the first semester. Most of my 7 roommates (yea, it was crowded.) had gone home for the weekend or were asleep already. My buddies Dan, Anthony, and I had bought some beer and were shootin the s*** in our dorm room when the idea was born. We decided we should build something out of beer caps. Sure, college people (including us) are usually unrefined in our decorative tastes and often decorate with alcohol bottles, but we wanted something a bit more complex. We settled on building a beer pong table, the top would be covered in caps and have USF (our school) in the school colors in the center. We did some math and found out that we needed, a TON of caps to cover our planned 8' by 2.5' table. About 2500 to be exact. Also, just setting caps on a table and gluing them down didn't seem very exciting, so we decided it would have raised edges and bar epoxy would cover the caps, leaving a smooth surface to play on and keeping moisture from rotting anything.
Fast forward two years of drinking and collecting caps. Big shout out to all of those that joined in and saved caps for us! On Friday, I had yet again, another bad day. My much anticipated and looked forward too, trip to Atlanta fell apart and I pretty much felt like s***. I had to do something to get me out of the house and keep me busy so my roommate and I headed to home depot to start the build. Here's our progress so far.
Materials needed:
s*** ton of beer bottle caps
Bar Epoxy (2 liters cost about $40 and didn't even cover 1/3 of the table)
8' x 2.5' 3/4 Particle Board (nice and sturdy works great with the epoxy)
21' of moulding, we chose some that had a small notch on the back to hold onto the table better
Liquid Nails
Clamps/Straps to hold wood while drying
The cool guy at Home Depot that will cut all the wood for you
Pictures!
Putting one of the sides on
Checking the corners and making them line up. We had to get notches cut in the molding since the saw at Homie Depot doesn't cut at angles.
All strapped up letting the glue dry. Its still hot as hell down here so it didn't take long.
Our friend's came over to help lay out all the caps. Real tedious work, this part took a while. Here's some of that:
Big Pile O' Caps
Getting some sorted and lined out
Making Progress !!!!
Everybody working hard
Close up of one side
Making room to form the center piece
Center piece sorting, etc. All the green caps for the center are Heiniken, the gold ones are Yuengling.
Where it's at now. We still need A LOT more resin so we need to find someplace to get it in bulk because its not cheap. The caps that are covered by resin already look insanely good though. The epoxy really accentuates their colors and s***.
Anyway so thats where we're at now. We're trying to get it done for my roommate and I's 21st birthday party this Saturday so hopefully I'll get some finished and action shots soon. :cheers:
Fast forward two years of drinking and collecting caps. Big shout out to all of those that joined in and saved caps for us! On Friday, I had yet again, another bad day. My much anticipated and looked forward too, trip to Atlanta fell apart and I pretty much felt like s***. I had to do something to get me out of the house and keep me busy so my roommate and I headed to home depot to start the build. Here's our progress so far.
Materials needed:
s*** ton of beer bottle caps
Bar Epoxy (2 liters cost about $40 and didn't even cover 1/3 of the table)
8' x 2.5' 3/4 Particle Board (nice and sturdy works great with the epoxy)
21' of moulding, we chose some that had a small notch on the back to hold onto the table better
Liquid Nails
Clamps/Straps to hold wood while drying
The cool guy at Home Depot that will cut all the wood for you
Pictures!
Putting one of the sides on
Checking the corners and making them line up. We had to get notches cut in the molding since the saw at Homie Depot doesn't cut at angles.
All strapped up letting the glue dry. Its still hot as hell down here so it didn't take long.
Our friend's came over to help lay out all the caps. Real tedious work, this part took a while. Here's some of that:
Big Pile O' Caps
Getting some sorted and lined out
Making Progress !!!!
Everybody working hard
Close up of one side
Making room to form the center piece
Center piece sorting, etc. All the green caps for the center are Heiniken, the gold ones are Yuengling.
Where it's at now. We still need A LOT more resin so we need to find someplace to get it in bulk because its not cheap. The caps that are covered by resin already look insanely good though. The epoxy really accentuates their colors and s***.
Anyway so thats where we're at now. We're trying to get it done for my roommate and I's 21st birthday party this Saturday so hopefully I'll get some finished and action shots soon. :cheers:
