Dominguez style pockets

nineballsafety8

nineballsafety8

6ft 5" 285, hits 'em hard
Silver Member
So anyone who has spent any time on AZB is familiar with Diamond/RKC's pocket angles/down angles 141/15... and I often hear reference of what Oscar and Ernesto do on the tables that they work on (4" pockets that are more parallel), but does anyone actually know what pocket angle that the Dominguez boys are using?

135 degrees would be perfectly parallel, but I would doubt that they are truly parallel... does anyone know the actual number?
 
They are very close to parallel.

Mine has his pockets cut at 4". I don't have a protractor but I took the top picture from straight above and measured the angle on the screen at about 138 degrees (the white paper was just for contrast, it's not set at the angle).

Here are some pics so you can check it yourself.
 

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Sloppy Pockets said:
Looks like pretty much bang on 135º.
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It has to be 135 . Take a right angle ( that is the angle that the two rails will make when they intersect each other) and bisect it. The angle will be 45 ( one half of 90 = 45 ) that it makes with the rail. The supplement is 135 because 135 + 45 = 180 and that equals a straight line.

🎱
 
TheBook said:
It has to be 135 . Take a right angle ( that is the angle that the two rails will make when they intersect each other) and bisect it. The angle will be 45 ( one half of 90 = 45 ) that it makes with the rail. The supplement is 135 because 135 + 45 = 180 and that equals a straight line.

🎱
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Actually, it would only be 135˚, if the facings are exactly parallel to one another. However, this is rarely the case, as it causes the pockets to play very forgiving. Most tables (with the exception of barboxes) will have facing angles in the range of 139˚-142˚. The larger the angle, the tougher the pocket plays.

Of course, there is a lot more to how a pocket plays, than just the horizontal facing angle. The vertical angle of the facing also plays a huge part, as well as the shelf depth of the slate. You can make a pocket with 141˚ horizontal angles play more forgiving by increasing the vertical facing angle.

For a Gold Crown, a vertical angle of 15˚ is a bit steep for my taste. I prefer a 4 1/2"-4 3/4" opening, with 141˚ horizontal angle, and 12-13˚ vertical. But, that's just my preference (on a Gold Crown). I'm not a huge fan of the super tight pockets, because it limits what you are able to do. I can always tighten up my aim for certain shots, but I don't like feeling limited in the shots that I can practice because the pockets are too tight. I also don't like having a pocket that accepts everything that comes near it.
 
TATE said:
That's some pretty good software you have there! That particular photo might be a little off since I wasn't trying to center the camera. How's the other pic?
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Nothing special, just Photoshop. Quick and easy to do. Here's my "recipe":

First I rotated your photo until it matched the grid overlay that is available in Photoshop, giving me a perfect 90º orientation. Then I used the line tool to draw intersecting yellow lines that define both the cushion edge and pocket facing. I grabbed a jpeg image of a protractor off of Google images and overlaid it onto your photo, with the origin exactly at the intersection of the two yellow lines. I changed the opacity of the protractor layer to 25% so you can see the yellow lines behind it, then cropped the whole thing with the crop tool and saved it as a jpeg. 5 minutes tops.

If you have Photoshop this is real easy to do, but I believe most consumer photo-editing software has these basic tools. I only have PS because my son was a computer design major in college and I got a student discount on it. Then I made the kid show me how to use it. Lol

Anyone who doesn't have software like this and wants pocket angle measurements of their table, just put up a photo and let me know. Only too glad to help.
 
Jay, your pockets look to be about the same angle as mine - 144º.

You also seem to have very little down angle on your pocket facings. Could be the photo, but they appear almost vertical. Aside from that, your pocket shelf depth is about 1 3/4" - quite deep. All things considered, your buckets probably play a heck of a lot tougher than their 5 1/4" opening would lead one to believe.

I included a shot of the grid I use to lay out things for measuring. I used a grid with 1" squares and 1/8" subdivisions. I resized your image until the 5 1/4" measurement you took coincided with the grid spacing, then drew lines across the pocket opening and across the throat right where the slate radius begins. These lines, along with the grid, give a fairly accurate measurement of your pocket shelf depth.

Finally, I drew a couple "1-balls" with the circle tool in PS to show the 3/4" gap between them when placed across the pocket opening. Man, you could break Mosconi's record with those catcher's mitts... just as long as you don't fire any shots down the rails at warp speed.
 

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Thank you for doing the hard work for me!!!
Believe it or not, playing the 10 ball ghost... This table is WAY harder than a 9 foot diamond. Trying to stroke balls for shape on this table is BRUTAL!!! However, I did have my highest straight pool run on it, as softly hit balls go in much easier.

The plan is to do 4.75" pockets with 142 degree pocket angles and 13 degree down angles (with the deep shelf)

Should be about perferct for what I want.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
nineballsafety8 said:
Thank you for doing the hard work for me!!!
Believe it or not, playing the 10 ball ghost... This table is WAY harder than a 9 foot diamond. Trying to stroke balls for shape on this table is BRUTAL!!! However, I did have my highest straight pool run on it, as softly hit balls go in much easier.

The plan is to do 4.75" pockets with 142 degree pocket angles and 13 degree down angles (with the deep shelf)

Should be about perferct for what I want.
Click to expand...

No problem. It wasn't hard work at all, I did it last night during the one-pocket. Kept me from falling asleep. ;)

You should be real happy with your table when it's done. I'd love to have my table brought to those specs, but it's just not worth putting the money into a furniture type table like mine.

Not only will you have two precious extra degrees, but your pocket shelf will be shallower as well. What you are proposing is just about what Earl recommends as the ideal pocket geometry, so you will have an Earl-worthy table when you are done. Except for one thing...

You'll need to lose those side pockets. :D
 
Sloppy Pockets said:
No problem. It wasn't hard work at all, I did it last night during the one-pocket. Kept me from falling asleep. ;)

You should be real happy with your table when it's done. I'd love to have my table brought to those specs, but it's just not worth putting the money into a furniture type table like mine.

Not only will you have two precious extra degrees, but your pocket shelf will be shallower as well. What you are proposing is just about what Earl recommends as the ideal pocket geometry, so you will have an Earl-worthy table when you are done. Except for one thing...

You'll need to lose those side pockets. :D
Click to expand...

I am doing all the work myself, so as far as I am concerned, the cost is literally only about $12 more than if I was just replacing the cloth, cushions and facings.

The extra wood needed for the subrail extension is negligible, and I already have access to all the tooling that I need, so for me it was a no brainer.

As far as the shelf... I am a little confused. I was unaware that changing the pocket angle and tightening the pocket would affect the shelf depth. Can you elaborate on that a little?
 
I got it now... by tightening the pockets, the point of the pocket is closer to the apex at the center of the pocket, there by moving closer to the shelf itself... makes sense when I actually thought about it an referenced your grid picture.
 
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