Fixing Olhausen style rail bolt anchors!

realkingcobra

realkingcobra

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Silver Member
With so many cheap made pool tables today, many of them make the rails 1 1/2" thick, using a bottom plate and top, finish plate. In between those two 3/4" plates the manufacturer inserts the rail bolt anchor T-nuts as a way of anchoring the rails down to the slate or cabinet frame.

What do you do when you come up on a table with the T-nut anchor spun out, bolt broken off, cut off, or otherwise unusable. Do you fix it, pass on it, drill another hole on the slate and anchor the rail down with a lag bolt, what do you do to make the repairs needed? Do you even bother with it?
 
realkingcobra said:
With so many cheap made pool tables today, many of them make the rails 1 1/2" thick, using a bottom plate and top, finish plate. In between those two 3/4" plates the manufacturer inserts the rail bolt anchor T-nuts as a way of anchoring the rails down to the slate or cabinet frame.

What do you do when you come up on a table with the T-nut anchor spun out, bolt broken off, cut off, or otherwise unusable. Do you fix it, pass on it, drill another hole on the slate and anchor the rail down with a lag bolt, what do you do to make the repairs needed? Do you even bother with it?
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I’ll take a stab. Disclaimer: not a mechanic.

Drill it out, glue in the appropriate size wood dowel, cut flush and install a threaded insert (epoxy it in).
 
rexus31 said:
I’ll take a stab. Disclaimer: not a mechanic.

Drill it out, glue in the appropriate size wood dowel, cut flush and install a threaded insert (epoxy it in).
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Have you seen the 5/16" threaded inserts? How do you drill out the old T-nut?
 
rexus31 said:
Without ever having seen the problem first hand, I’d need to have it in front of me to determine the best course of action. Anything at this point would be a guess.
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You'd be surprised at some of the fixes I've come across, and I kid you not, drilling through the slate, so a lag bolt can be threaded into the rail to pull it down.
 
I'm curious. I'm always extra careful when starting the threads on them. They have never gave an inkling of cross threading but I bet it would be a bear to deal with.
 
boogieman said:
I'm curious. I'm always extra careful when starting the threads on them. They have never gave an inkling of cross threading but I bet it would be a bear to deal with.
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They use flat washers for the most part. Idiots using impact drills run the rail bolts in tight enough to bend the flat washers inward, which is enough to cause the rail bolt to run out of threads when running it up tight, which then causes the T-nut to spin, bending the seating prongs to flat, and now you can't even back the rail bolts out, because you have no way of stopping the spinning T-nut, so you can back the rail bolts out.
 
boogieman said:
I'm curious. I'm always extra careful when starting the threads on them. They have never gave an inkling of cross threading but I bet it would be a bear to deal with.
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So you see, the bolts don't have to cross thread in oder to give you a problem, all the bolts need to do is run out of threads, and that's all it takes to spin a T-nut!
 
realkingcobra said:
They use flat washers for the most part. Idiots using impact drills run the rail bolts in tight enough to bend the flat washers inward, which is enough to cause the rail bolt to run out of threads when running it up tight, which then causes the T-nut to spin, bending the seating prongs to flat, and now you can't even back the rail bolts out, because you have no way of stopping the spinning T-nut, so you can back the rail bolts out.
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Dang.

So without seeing a picture, I'm just shooting in the dark (and don't remember what my table looked like when apart), but if you did have a spinning t-nut and were able to get the bolt out, could you by any chance drill some small holes through the wood and the flat on the t-nut and kind of dowel it in place to prevent spinning? Seems like a major pain in the butt but I would try to think of something like that. Thankfully I've not had to deal with spinning t-nuts but I could definitely see how they destroy them using impact drills. Those nuts have tabs and once they are flat you're in for a world of problems.

T-nuts are not perfect, but sufficient. They are definitely not designed to take beatings from impatient/ignorant mechanics.

realkingcobra said:
So you see, the bolts don't have to cross thread in oder to give you a problem, all the bolts need to do is run out of threads, and that's all it takes to spin a T-nut!
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Makes sense.
 
boogieman said:
Dang.

So without seeing a picture, I'm just shooting in the dark (and don't remember what my table looked like when apart), but if you did have a spinning t-nut and were able to get the bolt out, could you by any chance drill some small holes through the wood and the flat on the t-nut and kind of dowel it in place to prevent spinning? Seems like a major pain in the butt but I would try to think of something like that. Thankfully I've not had to deal with spinning t-nuts but I could definitely see how they destroy them using impact drills. Those nuts have tabs and once they are flat you're in for a world of problems.

T-nuts are not perfect, but sufficient. They are definitely not designed to take beatings from impatient/ignorant mechanics.


Makes sense.
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And then you have the rails you can't even get off the table because the rail bolts are just spinning. I watched Ernesto Dominguez use a Sawzall to cut 53 rail bolts off in order to get the rails off the Olhausen tables he was recovering for a pool room called the Broken Rack, in Emeryville, CA. After he cut all the rail bolts off, he then proceeded to drill down the cut off bolts in the T-nuts so he could make room for the nut plates he was screwing onto the bottom of the rails so he could bolt the rails back on the tables.

I guarantee you, Ernesto learned something that day, and has never forgotten it since😅
 
I was at the Broken Rack, delivering a Diamond 9ft ProAm I sold them, and recovering the other Diamond 9ft ProAm they already owned. They were moving locations, so, since I had the ability to help them move some of their equipment, I volunteered to move their 10' 3C and 12' Snooker tables to the new location. Setting them all back up again, and recovering them was on Ernesto.

I didn't just tell Ernesto how to fix the rail bolts, I asked him first, if he'd like to learn how to fix them right, and in only minutes per bolt. He graciously accepted my offer, so I showed him, which just left him speechless, but a good lesson learned!!!
 
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realkingcobra said:
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You see that rail bolt threaded insert? Its mounted where the old rail bolt use to be. What you need is a 1 3/8" hole saw, 1 1/2" popular round stock, a threaded insert like Diamond uses, or a replacement T-nut.

Then you need a 4"×4"×3/4" piece of plywood. Take the I 3/8" hole saw and center drill the plywood, remove the plug.

Then center the plywood on the bottom of the rail, centered on the bolt and T-nut to be removed. Take the drill bit out of the hole saw, then using the plywood at a guide to keep the hole saw from walking around, drill down 13/16" and stop. Now take the plywood off, and remove the plug you just drilled, and the T-nut will come out with it. It's a separate piece of wood used on the bottom of the rails, not glued or stapled very good. If the plug don't come tight out, put 2 wood screws in the plug, opposite sides, then use a long screw driver to turn the plug, it'll come right out.

Cut the popular wooden dowel to a thickness of 3/4" and center drill it for the T-nut if you want to replace it, install the nut, install the plug, spinning it to get a good coverage with the wood glue, then screw it down in place with at least 2 wood screws, then set it aside for 24 hours to dry. And I know what you're thinking, the 1 3/8" hole saw don't match up with the 1 1/2" popular dowel. Well, hole saws are measured by the inside cut, but the outside cut is 1/8" bigger than the inside, so the outside net cut IS 1 1/2".
 
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