Rail cloth too tight

J

jad

Registered
I recently purchased an 8' Olhausen Dona Marie. The table was installed with Simonis 860. When the installer placed the rails I noticed that the rail cloth was tight enough to make the tip of the rubber wavy and uneven. It is easy to see and can easily be felt if you run you hand along the rails. I think it's probably bad enough to have an effect on slow rolling balls.

I asked him about it and he said "It should stretch". That was a month ago and it hasn't.

Is this an easy fix? What is involved in making this as it should be? Anybody have experience in dealing with Olhausen on such issues?

Thanks in advance.
 
jad said:
I recently purchased an 8' Olhausen Dona Marie. The table was installed with Simonis 860. When the installer placed the rails I noticed that the rail cloth was tight enough to make the tip of the rubber wavy and uneven. It is easy to see and can easily be felt if you run you hand along the rails. I think it's probably bad enough to have an effect on slow rolling balls.

I asked him about it and he said "It should stretch". That was a month ago and it hasn't.

Is this an easy fix? What is involved in making this as it should be? Anybody have experience in dealing with Olhausen on such issues?

Thanks in advance.
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This is not an Olhausen issue. This is an inexperienced installer issue. When stapling the rail cloth you must not shoot where you pull the cloth with your fingers. Where are you located?
 
I'm located in St. John's NL, Canada. The installer was the Olhausen dealer....so wouldn't this be Olhausen's issue?
 
jad said:
I'm located in St. John's NL, Canada. The installer was the Olhausen dealer....so wouldn't this be Olhausen's issue?
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It is the Olhausen dealer's issue to resolve the problem. If they do not take care of it I would definatly contact Olhausen about their dealerships lack of customer service.
 
This is the mechanic fault, not Olhausen. Olhausen does have a soft cushion, but a good mechanic will compensate for that.
 
jad said:
Ok..but is it an easy fix? What's involved in making it right?

Thanks again.
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try putting a staple in between his staples and then removing his staples. If that doesn't work remove all his staples and start from scratch.
 
Fyi

Guy that did my table originally had my rails scalloped badly too. He told he the cloth would stretch in a month or two. 14 months later I had someone else come in to straighten out his mess.
 
After a month or so being scalloped, would the rail rubber be deformed or should they rebound to their original shape?
 
jad said:
When the installer placed the rails I noticed that the rail cloth was tight enough to make the tip of the rubber wavy and uneven. It is easy to see and can easily be felt if you run you hand along the rails.

I asked him about it and he said "It should stretch"
Click to expand...
once I noticed the same thing with a mechanic doing our club tables, and he said exactly the same. With time it did really stretch I recall, but as I was suspicious about the back then, now I learnt from AZ mechanics it is not the way to go. And even if it was, how can you imagine doing a table and having to leave it intact until the cloth stretches? Or play on a crappy table to make it stretch? Good we have this section to give correct answers.
 
I'm not a mechanic, however this thread is a good reference for installing cloth on rails. I followed the descriptions and my Simonis 860 install was a bit tight at first but stretched slightly over 6 months. It will not help with a fix but at least you'll understand what it takes to install colth on the rails.

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=135528
 
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Take a wash rag, get it wet, then use it to rub down the cloth on the cushions, getting them wet but not soaking wet. The moisture will cause the cloth to stretch and loosen up a bit, then when the cloth drys out the cushions will be fine....as long as the dimples are not to deep. And no, cloth don't shrink when it drys out;)

Glen
 
I had some luck fixing this same problem on a table when i was on vacation one time. as well as wetting the cloth we used a ball to rub against the rubber to so call "unload" the pinch points that were there. When you rub the ball back and forth down the rail rubber the cloth "pinch load " is temporarily removed and when it springs back hopefully the "pinch load" gets dispersed over a wider area. the rails in my example were maybe not as severly "scalloped" as your problem. just my 2 cents
 
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