Shuffleboard Tables 101

Size

Shuffleboards come in a number of playing field (part of the table top you actually use) lengths: 9’, 12’, 14’, 16’, 18’, 20’, and 22′ feet long. Official tournament tables are 22’ in length. The table is 3’ tall and the playing field is between 16-20” varying with the length of the playing field.

Materials

A proper shuffleboard table is made from a type of hardwood called, “Canadian maple wood”. This is a high-quality wood that doesn’t easily scratch. So, don’t be fooled by imitators. Some companies, even with North American-sounding names, actually have their tables built in Asia with look-alike materials. This can lessen the quality of the shuffleboard, decrease its lifespan, and the length of time it will look good. We came across an example that is tricky. It says, “Playfield is made from plantation-grown North American poplar.” This doesn’t actually tell you where the trees were grown or that the tables were made in China (we checked).

The planks that make up the boards, ideally, will be interlocked and have climate adjusters in addition to being glued together and finished. Interlocked planks have key-hole-inspired cut-outs that “lock in” with the protruding  “key” side of an adjacent plank. Meanwhile “climate adjusters” are simple knobs located underneath the playing field that release downward or add pushing pressure up to various points of the playing field. They’re important as they allow you to manipulate the wood as needed as humidity and temperature change. Inferior tables whose planks are only glued together and don’t feature climate adjusters will warp rendering the table unplayable.

Finish

The best finish for a shuffleboard table is polyurethane like our Olhaussen shuffleboard tables feature. They’re really neat as it’s basically self-healing!. Let’s say you nick a teeny scrape of the polyurethane off. You can fix this by carefully using a blow dryer to heat up the area until the poly resets itself, let cool and you’re back like new!