HISTORY OF SHUFFLEBOARD PLANKS

History

The best shuffleboard surfaces have been traditionally built from 3-inch thick butcher-block construction using white maple. The butcher-block was face glued either flat or with tongue-and-grooves.

 

Wood

White maple has been the wood of choice because it is aesthetically clean, bright, and of uniform grain. It is hard, strong, stiff and decay resistant. It machines well and glues well. It does not dent easily. All of these properties were very important before the development of polymer finishes. Until about 15 years ago, shuffleboard weights were in direct contact with the treated wood surface. Even with the best maple construction, a regularly used shuffleboard would require a surface refinish about once each year. This would require a skilled professional.

Nearly all high-quality shuffleboards are coated with a ¼ inch-thick layer of clear polymer resin. This requires no refinish and may come with a life-time warranty. Since the shuffleboard weights only contact the resin, there is no longer a requirement for the dent and wear resistance of maple.

As a side note, bowling lanes also used butcher-block construction. The lanes were approximately 3-inches thick and 42-inches wide. Roughly the first 10 feet and the area near the pins were also white maple. The 40 -50 feet of lane length in between the ball landing zone and the pins was made of fir or pine to save cost.

 

Board Shaping and Adjustment

Shuffleboards properly setup have the board surface slightly concave so that moving weights tend to curve to the center. At Hudson Shuffleboards, we keep these measurements a secret, unless of course your our customer.

 

In order to control the playing surface to these contours, one uses the climatic adjusters which are hardware assemblies that are permanently attached to the board undersurface at specified intervals. Reference the photograph. When tightened, these produce both a bending moment and tension forces across the board as shown in the illustration. The combination of moment and tension produces a maximum force that occurs in the center of the board. This is the typical location of common failures in butcher block construction.

 

 

 

 

The Hudson Shuffleboard

Hudson Shuffleboards:

Have a life-time warranty, polymer finish which is made and applied to the playing surface here in the USA

Improve quality, retain beauty, and play like no other shuffleboard table on the market.