Rack 'em up: Local man builds pool table

"It's great to be able to have something that you can step back when you're finished and look at it and you can be proud of what you've accomplished," Matt Fisher said.

Fisher, who grew up around woodworking, took up the hobby in the last few years. "I worked summers and in college with a mason doing masonry," he said. "I never did a lot of woodworking until the last five or 10 years."

Obviously when Fisher decides to do something, he jumps in with both feet. When asked about some of his past projects, there is no mention of spice racks or little stools.

"I built my wife a cedar chest for Christmas one year," Fisher said. "Another time I built her a table. My Dad was a carpenter. It's in my blood."

Fisher always includes his father in the projects. "It's a great way for us to spend time together," he said. "And it's a great way to learn stuff that he knows. He spent a career doing it."

The other benefit Fisher finds in woodworking is relaxation. "It's a good stress release. Some people binge watch TV shows. I can't sit still long enough to do that, so I have these projects."

The idea for the pool table came one day when Fisher was in his parents' basement. They had moved into their current location 25 years ago, taking a pool table with them. The table had to be broken down into pieces for the move.

"It's been in pieces in my parent's basement for 25 years," Fisher said. "I got a hair-brained idea one day and decided to use that as a template and build one."

Fisher kept the top of the table and built everything else. He looked to YouTube and found some helpful ideas, but there was nothing that went through the process and explained all the steps.

"It helped that I could use the pieces as a template," Fisher said. "I had some conversations with Clark & Son Billiard over in Canton. I started by taking the whole thing back to my house and then taking apart the pieces to see how they were put together."

One of the tips Fisher found online was how high to make the rail. "Everything has to be just so to make it work," he said.

He started with the rail pieces. "I relied on Lodi Lumber," Fisher said. "I told them what I was making, and they took their time and gave me some quality materials, and they were able to do some millwork for me."

The rail sites on the table are quite unique. "They're 45-long colt-shell casings that a friend at the Sheriff's Department helped me with," he said. "I cut them off and set them down in the rails."

The handmade pool table now resides in Fisher's basement; however, he didn't build it there. "I built it in the barn, as I call it, a detached garage with my tools, and then actually disassembled it, carried it down to the basement and reassembled it."

Transporting the table, even in pieces, was no easy feat, requiring a lot of neighborly assistance.

Building a pool table requires some unique precision as well as skills beyond woodworking. The process involved a lot of math.

"There is a lot of geometry in a pool table," Fisher said.

Another needed skill was felting. Although Fisher kept the top from his father's table, it needed to be refelted.

"The guys on YouTube make felting look easy," Fisher said. "I will tell you it's not easy. There can't be anything under it: no bubbles, no hairs, not anything. You have to get it stretched just right."

Of the next project on the horizon, Fisher said, "I'm thinking about a four-poster bed with storage underneath."