None of my rails have hardened up and they are over 60 years old. And if I didn't have a small chunk missing from one of my Monarch cushions, I'd probably keep mine for the same reason. I just wish they could be safely removed and completely intact for re-sale.
I have heard of people reusing and remounting them before. I read a thread somewhere on here about a mechanic who tightened up pockets by adding a bit of stretch when reapplying them so they go on just that 1" longer or whatever. I don't know how you get them off without damaging them but someone has. I know you said one has a chunk out of it but I bet there are folks with just a dead rail or two who could use whatever you could salvage and they might sell for something...
Mechanic/player thanks, I missed your super glue post on featherstrips. That would help if mine didn't come out in so many pieces, maybe I can get the rest of them off in fewer pieces if I can make a tool to reach further under them and pry them out better. Thanks for the tip.
Here are some more pics of progress and it's starting to take shape. The slate is all screwed down now and leveled and seamed and sanded. I just used a deck of old playing cards as shims, worked well and wasn't that hard to do really. Mostly just used a long straightedge with a light behind it for the leveling beween and across slate pieces. I had to go back and forth many times trying different placement and numbers of cards as it changed when tightening the screws, but was just tedious and time consuming not really hard. The table itself was leveled as well as I could get it before I even started leveling the slates individually, spent a good amount of time on that slow rolling balls so I think it should be pretty close to decent. At least I hope so... I even took all the backing off the slates and cleaned up the mating surfaces and got all the dust out and then reassembled them so it would hopefully come out better with less shims than if I had left all those years of grit and junk between them. Seemed to help, only one corner took 3 cards as shims thickness wise, the rest of it just mostly one or two cards. I made sure to shim where needed at every screw point so I think it's a decent job with proper support.
I tried to clean the stains in the cloth just for giggles with paint thinner and then break cleaner as I read in another thread here, just so I could get it together for a while to play on and look for any flaws in the table's level or surface before good cloth goes on, that sure didn't help... All it did is make the thing stink and it's just one big wet spot still, going to probably take a while to dry. Boy this cloth is slow as dirt though, it's so thick and slow I doubt anything but the biggest most rediculous flaws would even show up. It's not going to help me any with trying to see how well I did fine leveling the table or slates which is really unfortunate. I had hoped to have it all spot on before stapling on any new cloth but that doesn't seem possible now.
I'm really lucky you're sending that used simonis because now that it's together, I can't imagine seriously trying to play on this garbage. You have to really whack the hell out of the ball just to get it to come around 3 rails. I'm not at all used to that. I guess that's just the way it was in the old days but I don't recall it's been so long, plus there's just no place I've played in a very long time that doesn't use simonis anymore.
Anyway here you can see the castings, not high gloss but ok. And the badge I removed all the previous color and coating from, it shined up nice but shows some fingerprints and scratches now. More so in pictures with flash than in person. but looks like I have a bit more work to do on them. And the rub rails are pretty nice now too, except looks like I'll have to polish them more also. You can see the rails don't look too bad, the formica held up pretty well.
One last rail to fit, have to make a feather strip and put cloth on but will probably just wait. I don't want to put a bunch more staples in just to take them out in a couple weeks. This cloth on the bed isn't stapled at all, just the friction of the rails are holding it on somewhat tight atm. I think I need to take an angle grinder with buffing wheel to the whole thing though and polish it all a little more and then shine it up with some more wax. It's really showing fingerprints a lot on everything. Remember all those metal parts were painted a couple times before I got it to cover scratches that were all the way through the metal coating on top, and I stripped all the paint then sanded them from 80 grit and completely removed all the original coating of nickel or whatever it was and polished up to this which is only around 600 grit. It's not perfect, flash shows scratches that the naked eye doesn't see too, but still it's really a vast improvement.
Next on the to do list is fixing the plastic pockets which are cracking at the base. I think I can fix them...Going to try a little plastic welding, or maybe hit them with this wonderful bondo. Not going to spend a lot of time on those or anything though, just need to keep them from getting any worse really. As long as they don't completely crack apart and balls don't fall out onto the floor they'll be ok for now. Worst case scenario, there's always duct tape.
If you're looking at the cloth on that head rail and thinking it looks more like rough thick canvas made from hemp or cotton than wool, you might be right. It feels and plays like rough canvas.
I'm excited and looking forward to it.:thumbup:
