I have been trying to decide on something here for a while now. I have a 7 foot sportcraft pool table in my living room now. It is not a slate table I believe it is slatron, The table has quite a few issues wrong with it. I cannot seem to get it level and when I get it close to level it seems to be good till about the first time you brush up against it or lean over it. The pockets are all large like 5". The cloth on it is very loose when I set my hand on the table or even slide the rack up on the table it tends to literally make a wave in the cloth. The living room is not large enough to support a nine foot table in fact the 7 foot table is a bit cramped. I am not a fantastic player by any means. I am not in a league so I have no rating or skill level. If I had to guess at my current skill level I would say I am probably about an sl 4-5 . I can currently run a rack in one or two trys. That is going up though as I practice several hours per day. I cannot play good position yet on this table. I don't play on other tables as I rarely go out of the house for other then food shopping, work, or family needs. I am a firm believer in the concept that it is not the tools you have but the way you use them. I know I want to buy a great new table but I don't plan on living in this apartment forever in fact I am working on getting into a house. Either way I plan on getting some things like a couple new shafts as my current ones are warped pretty bad and I want to have consistent aim. Also going to get some training DVDs. So should I just continue to work on my fundamentals on the badly warped and twisted unlevel table for another year or should I replace it with a better 7 foot table this year? If I had a larger room I would really love to get a nine foot table but unfortunately in this area most apartments and even houses I have seen do not have rooms large enough to support a table like that.
Pool Table Replacement?
- Thread starter Kevin3824
- Start date
SlewFootLag
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Look on Craigslist... I have a 1960's Fischer coin-op, that I picked up for $75. 6ft. One piece slate. It was certainly playable, and from what it sounds like -- more playable than your Sportcraft, but definitely not perfect. Some dead-ish rails and nappy annoying cloth, the mechanism was wonky and the particle board cabinet was in rough shape... Although small, I wanted the best playing table i could reasonably afford that would allow me to accurately practice at home. So, I bought the proper profile replacement cushions/facings and Championship Tour Edition cloth, the Simonis installation DVD(worth it). If you're handy and have a couple hundred bucks you can have yourself a great playing table. I love it.
PS Being short on space my table doubles as a dining room table. I took a 4'x8' of that 2" pink insulation and cut it to the playing surface dimensions(6'x3'), then cut it in 3 pieces. With some wide duct tape for the "hinges", you can make it into a tri-fold out table top that can be hidden by a table cloth...
Good luck!
PS Being short on space my table doubles as a dining room table. I took a 4'x8' of that 2" pink insulation and cut it to the playing surface dimensions(6'x3'), then cut it in 3 pieces. With some wide duct tape for the "hinges", you can make it into a tri-fold out table top that can be hidden by a table cloth...
Good luck!
Kevin,
I do think you should steer clear of used 6 & 7 ft tables - it would be hard for me to do that with confidence, though it may work for you.. it would have to be in excellent condition. OTOH, if you WERE able to find an excellent 7 ft, you could probably buy it, use it for a few years, and sell it for the same money again.
Talking about hoping for an 8 or 9 ft one day, I know you could get a brand new 7 ft slate Valley table now for right under $2k - would be great now, and fine for later unless you really want to a full sized table.
Obviously, if you can make a house or apartment work and want to wait for that, I think that's best case scenario, but when I bought my last house, the cost was more than I had hoped and my budget for furniture became debt - no new pool tables for me!
Best of luck, whatever you do!
I do think you should steer clear of used 6 & 7 ft tables - it would be hard for me to do that with confidence, though it may work for you.. it would have to be in excellent condition. OTOH, if you WERE able to find an excellent 7 ft, you could probably buy it, use it for a few years, and sell it for the same money again.
Talking about hoping for an 8 or 9 ft one day, I know you could get a brand new 7 ft slate Valley table now for right under $2k - would be great now, and fine for later unless you really want to a full sized table.
Obviously, if you can make a house or apartment work and want to wait for that, I think that's best case scenario, but when I bought my last house, the cost was more than I had hoped and my budget for furniture became debt - no new pool tables for me!
Best of luck, whatever you do!
Kevin,
I do think you should steer clear of used 6 & 7 ft tables - it would be hard for me to do that with confidence, though it may work for you.. it would have to be in excellent condition. OTOH, if you WERE able to find an excellent 7 ft, you could probably buy it, use it for a few years, and sell it for the same money again.
Talking about hoping for an 8 or 9 ft one day, I know you could get a brand new 7 ft slate Valley table now for right under $2k - would be great now, and fine for later unless you really want to a full sized table.
Obviously, if you can make a house or apartment work and want to wait for that, I think that's best case scenario, but when I bought my last house, the cost was more than I had hoped and my budget for furniture became debt - no new pool tables for me!
Best of luck, whatever you do!
Thank you for the heads up. Actually I have already made the decision and after speaking with Heath Manning from Manning Cues. I was able to purchase a 7 foot Diamond Pro-Am. It will be setup and installed in the next few weeks. I simply do not have the room to for a larger table here. If I get into another place there is no guarantee of its size. The seven foot table is the smallest I am willing to go. I do not look at Valley or Dynamo tables as being 7 foot because I look at playing area. Heath was able to answer all of my questions and concerns. He has been and I believe will be with me every step of the way. He helped me through making some tough decisions about my table as well. Heath even helped me save an international banking fee that my personal bank charged me. He is first class highly knowledgeable and very nice. If you are looking for anything related to pool or your game room I would look on his site first. I have never experienced any purchase as pleasant. I felt good about making the purchase even though I had never met him before and the money was going to another country and by nature I am a very cynical person. I tell everyone I know to purchase from him at Manning Cues.
Sounds like a winner to me, congrats!