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Please bear in mind this is my first billiards table ever...first time stripping and painting something, first time polishing aluminum, first time repairing a pool table of any kind. Many thanks to the thousands of forum posts on this site for sharing your knowledge and wisdom and of course "YouTube"! I know the work I've done over the last two weeks pales in comparison to some of the restorations I've seen on here but for the money and time I've put in combined with my complete lack of experience I think it is turning out quite well. Learned a lot and had some fun doing this, can't wait to shoot on it tomorrow evening!
Searched for a long time in the DFW area to find a gold crown 1, 2, 3 or 4 but the rare occasions they would be very high priced and honestly not look that good. I stumbled across this table and ended up buying it. The table was fully assembled in the upstairs and so I was able to shoot on it and to see if it was at least playable. It seemed to be in decent shape considering the asking price ($1,500) and so I purchased it for a $1,000. I hired local billiards service to do the disassembly and heavy lifting.
When I got it to my house I had arranged to have the billiards service come back out in a week to re-assemble, balance it and re-felt it. My goal was to simply clean up the old parts and pieces and address anything that might be busted. Well thanks to this forum, that turned into me stripping, sanding, polishing, painting, powder coating and refurbishing everything I could.
Situation: Previous owner bought it from a local pool hall and the rails and pockets had been modified to accommodate a smaller pocket. Formica had usual scuffs and wear along with the aluminum trim. Pocket castings were pretty rough and the pedestal feet were terrible. Someone had painted the ball storage rack, legs and stretcher black, the side aprons were stained and it looked like a pretty crappy job. The entire base frame assembly had been painted brown. The ball box trim, rail counters and nameplate were all covered in 50+ years of smegma!
Action: I stripped all of the wood parts. Discovered the original Brunswick AR 6100 sticker under the paint. The legs, ball storage rack and stretcher were all original white underneath and the aprons were tangerine. Repainted all of them white using the SW Urethane Enamel paint codes using an HVLP gun and a 2.0 tip (never painted anything before). For the base frame, after I sanded it down and repaired everything, it looked so good in raw wood I just hit it with some tung oil. Had to sand the aluminum trim to get the big scratches and nicks out, started at 220 and went to 3000 grit. Then I cut, buffed and polished with my handy Amazon buffing kit until it looked like chrome. Took all of the pock castings and feet to the powder coater and had them bead blasted then baked them at 375 using Prismatic Powder's "Super Chrome" base coat and finished it with "Clear Vision" (only $200). Had to fill in numerous blown out screw holes and bolt holes using toothpicks and wood glue. Ordered a all new hardware and got all of it in either stainless or yellow zinc coated. Repaired the legs the best I could with wood bondo, filler and a lot of sanding. They really needed to have the laminate wood replaced but I felt that was beyond my abilities. Ordered new drop pockets, various other small things from Classic Billiards.
Left to Do: Final assembly and new felt going down tomorrow morning. Need to order the nice Brunswick Decals for the side aprons, new model decal for the stretcher and a new nameplate from Classic Billiards. I would reuse my nameplate but I have no idea how to paint the inside of that pot metal. I tried an acrylic paint in a rose gold metallic but it wouldn't stick.
Here are the photos in the last owner's house when I first saw the table.
Here are the progress photos to date.
Searched for a long time in the DFW area to find a gold crown 1, 2, 3 or 4 but the rare occasions they would be very high priced and honestly not look that good. I stumbled across this table and ended up buying it. The table was fully assembled in the upstairs and so I was able to shoot on it and to see if it was at least playable. It seemed to be in decent shape considering the asking price ($1,500) and so I purchased it for a $1,000. I hired local billiards service to do the disassembly and heavy lifting.
When I got it to my house I had arranged to have the billiards service come back out in a week to re-assemble, balance it and re-felt it. My goal was to simply clean up the old parts and pieces and address anything that might be busted. Well thanks to this forum, that turned into me stripping, sanding, polishing, painting, powder coating and refurbishing everything I could.
Situation: Previous owner bought it from a local pool hall and the rails and pockets had been modified to accommodate a smaller pocket. Formica had usual scuffs and wear along with the aluminum trim. Pocket castings were pretty rough and the pedestal feet were terrible. Someone had painted the ball storage rack, legs and stretcher black, the side aprons were stained and it looked like a pretty crappy job. The entire base frame assembly had been painted brown. The ball box trim, rail counters and nameplate were all covered in 50+ years of smegma!
Action: I stripped all of the wood parts. Discovered the original Brunswick AR 6100 sticker under the paint. The legs, ball storage rack and stretcher were all original white underneath and the aprons were tangerine. Repainted all of them white using the SW Urethane Enamel paint codes using an HVLP gun and a 2.0 tip (never painted anything before). For the base frame, after I sanded it down and repaired everything, it looked so good in raw wood I just hit it with some tung oil. Had to sand the aluminum trim to get the big scratches and nicks out, started at 220 and went to 3000 grit. Then I cut, buffed and polished with my handy Amazon buffing kit until it looked like chrome. Took all of the pock castings and feet to the powder coater and had them bead blasted then baked them at 375 using Prismatic Powder's "Super Chrome" base coat and finished it with "Clear Vision" (only $200). Had to fill in numerous blown out screw holes and bolt holes using toothpicks and wood glue. Ordered a all new hardware and got all of it in either stainless or yellow zinc coated. Repaired the legs the best I could with wood bondo, filler and a lot of sanding. They really needed to have the laminate wood replaced but I felt that was beyond my abilities. Ordered new drop pockets, various other small things from Classic Billiards.
Left to Do: Final assembly and new felt going down tomorrow morning. Need to order the nice Brunswick Decals for the side aprons, new model decal for the stretcher and a new nameplate from Classic Billiards. I would reuse my nameplate but I have no idea how to paint the inside of that pot metal. I tried an acrylic paint in a rose gold metallic but it wouldn't stick.
Here are the photos in the last owner's house when I first saw the table.
Here are the progress photos to date.
