Redoing my table on my own because I want to learn.

[BSealsBazooka]

Here's a little background on me: I am an engineer by degree, a business owner, and a contractor by trade. I grew up playing pool from a young age, and my family has a history in this game going back a couple of generations. I put the cue down for many years, but recently picked it back up a couple of years ago. For some reason, my grandfather has been talked about a lot recently on podcasts, which led to me becoming friends with CJ and getting a few lessons from him. Somewhere in this recent journey, the local pool hall owner gifted me one of their old tables before replacing them with Diamond tables. It is an older Brunswick Brookstone 2.

The local guy who maintains the Diamonds at the pool hall set it up for me. He's a great guy, very knowledgeable, and a hell of a player. At first, I was thrilled to have a 9-foot at home, but over time, I began to notice little things that drove me crazy. Some pockets were way easier for certain shots than others. I would notice this while doing drills and while playing. I also noticed that the pockets didn't look clean and symmetrical in all places.

Well, that got me doing research and spending a lot of time on these forums. I started to get really into learning about the physics of the game, pocket geometry, and reading a lot in the mechanic forums. I bought a cheap protractor, measured all my pocket angles and down angles, and realized that it was pretty inconsistent. The pocket angles range from around 146 to 153, with none of them being the same in any single spot. Down angles are from 8 degrees to 14 degrees, again just random. No two sides in any pocket match the same pocket they're in.

I just dealt with this for a little while, keeping center pocket in mind and playing to the strengths of each pocket in games. I had just paid for new cushions and cloth for the table and didn't want to do it all again right away. Eventually, though, the slate started getting small humps at the seams, and I started planning to have it redone. I feel like I have learned a lot, and want to redo it myself slowly, just for the sake of learning how to do it. I'm very patient and thorough in everything that I do, so I'm pretty confident I can do a good job.

I'm currently in prep mode. I have a sanding disk for my miter saw and have practiced on some scrap 2x4's getting the angles correct. (They were just cut with a knife when they were installed). I have new cushions (Brunswick Super speeds) and a set of 60 durometer facings from classic billiards in both 1/4" and 3/16" so I can decide once I get them torn down which to use. I have new cloth on the shelf ready to go, I've ordered a Starrett level and a straight edge. I have access to hardwood to extend the sub rails if that's needed (I don't think that I will have to.) I've drown up some templates in sketchup to get a feel for how it should go. I'm really excited to get into it.

At any rate, I'm excited to attempt to tackle this on my own slowly and thoroughly. I did have a couple of questions.

There appears to be 2 types of 3m10 contact adhesive. Is that just packaging, or are there actually two kinds. One seems to be more expensive than the other. I've seen both linked to on here. Just want to make sure I get this step correct. I plan to index and edge glue the cloth as per RKC vids and simonis.

My other question is as to what extent it's okay to post progress on here for others to maybe catch my mistakes while I'm learning or give me encouragment that I'm doing it correctly.

I've included a few pictures of the current table conditions just to know what I'm dealing with. Again, this is just practice and learning. Currently saving up for a diamond professional, but that will take me about another year. Just enjoying the journey.

 

[rexus31]

Welcome and congrats on the new to you table.

You will definitely want to extend and recut the pockets. It is best to use plywood as it will be less prone to splitting vs hardwood. Have you decided on pocket size and geometry?

I'd say post your pics as you go. There's knowledgeable folks here who could help you out along the way.

I recommend finding RKC's phone number, as he's posted it a number of times. He's very willing to share his knowledge if you call him.

Look forward to seeing your progress.

 

[BSealsBazooka]

Thanks Rexus. I appreciate the warm welcome!

The pocket geometry I'm shooting for is 4.5" corners with 5" sides. 141/102 with 12-degree down angles.

I was under the impression that plywood was bad for extending rails because the angle may end up cutting between layers when sanding down the final 141?

Also, a cool thing just happened. I was speaking with the owner of the pool hall, and he offered to give me a second set of rails from the same table. That way I can refinish the second set, then give back the set that's on it when I finish. This is awesome! Now I can really take my time with no downtime on my actually playing table until the rails are ready!

 

[rexus31]

Thanks Rexus. I appreciate the warm welcome!

The pocket geometry I'm shooting for is 4.5" corners with 5" sides. 141/102 with 12-degree down angles.

I was under the impression that plywood was bad for extending rails because the angle may end up cutting between layers when sanding down the final 141?

Also, a cool thing just happened. I was speaking with the owner of the pool hall, and he offered to give me a second set of rails from the same table. That way I can refinish the second set, then give back the set that's on it when I finish. This is awesome! Now I can really take my time with no downtime on my actually playing table until the rails are ready!

You could cut your existing pockets to 141°/12°, attach the plywood and final sand to the desired size.

 

[spktur]

The best thing you can do is contact RKC for any advice you need. Talk to him right and he is very helpful and there's no one with more knowledge regarding the tables.

 

[boogieman]

Here's a little background on me: I am an engineer by degree, a business owner, and a contractor by trade. I grew up playing pool from a young age, and my family has a history in this game going back a couple of generations. I put the cue down for many years, but recently picked it back up a couple of years ago. For some reason, my grandfather has been talked about a lot recently on podcasts, which led to me becoming friends with CJ and getting a few lessons from him. Somewhere in this recent journey, the local pool hall owner gifted me one of their old tables before replacing them with Diamond tables. It is an older Brunswick Brookstone 2.

The local guy who maintains the Diamonds at the pool hall set it up for me. He's a great guy, very knowledgeable, and a hell of a player. At first, I was thrilled to have a 9-foot at home, but over time, I began to notice little things that drove me crazy. Some pockets were way easier for certain shots than others. I would notice this while doing drills and while playing. I also noticed that the pockets didn't look clean and symmetrical in all places.

Well, that got me doing research and spending a lot of time on these forums. I started to get really into learning about the physics of the game, pocket geometry, and reading a lot in the mechanic forums. I bought a cheap protractor, measured all my pocket angles and down angles, and realized that it was pretty inconsistent. The pocket angles range from around 146 to 153, with none of them being the same in any single spot. Down angles are from 8 degrees to 14 degrees, again just random. No two sides in any pocket match the same pocket they're in.

I just dealt with this for a little while, keeping center pocket in mind and playing to the strengths of each pocket in games. I had just paid for new cushions and cloth for the table and didn't want to do it all again right away. Eventually, though, the slate started getting small humps at the seams, and I started planning to have it redone. I feel like I have learned a lot, and want to redo it myself slowly, just for the sake of learning how to do it. I'm very patient and thorough in everything that I do, so I'm pretty confident I can do a good job.

I'm currently in prep mode. I have a sanding disk for my miter saw and have practiced on some scrap 2x4's getting the angles correct. (They were just cut with a knife when they were installed). I have new cushions (Brunswick Super speeds) and a set of 60 durometer facings from classic billiards in both 1/4" and 3/16" so I can decide once I get them torn down which to use. I have new cloth on the shelf ready to go, I've ordered a Starrett level and a straight edge. I have access to hardwood to extend the sub rails if that's needed (I don't think that I will have to.) I've drown up some templates in sketchup to get a feel for how it should go. I'm really excited to get into it.

At any rate, I'm excited to attempt to tackle this on my own slowly and thoroughly. I did have a couple of questions.

There appears to be 2 types of 3m10 contact adhesive. Is that just packaging, or are there actually two kinds. One seems to be more expensive than the other. I've seen both linked to on here. Just want to make sure I get this step correct. I plan to index and edge glue the cloth as per RKC vids and simonis.

My other question is as to what extent it's okay to post progress on here for others to maybe catch my mistakes while I'm learning or give me encouragment that I'm doing it correctly.

I've included a few pictures of the current table conditions just to know what I'm dealing with. Again, this is just practice and learning. Currently saving up for a diamond professional, but that will take me about another year. Just enjoying the journey.

Feel free, there's a ton of knowledge on here and it's nice to see other discussions other than "what tip/shaft/chalk" type stuff.

I'm sure you've seen it, but there's really good info in the stickies about leveling 3 piece slates, RKC has great content on his youtube channel about various things. Even though your table isn't a diamond brand, I found the diamond leveling video (where they used the index cards with arrows) very useful when I had my Olhausen. When I leveled my Diamond, RKC walked me through it on the phone while I turned the bolts. He can seem a bit spikey on the forum but he's one of the most helpful and nices dudes I've ever had a conversation with. I think we BSed for about an hour after the table was leveled.

I have a thread here about fixing the pocket angles on that Olhausen table. It's not really what you're doing and not really the correct way of extending the subrails, but there was a lot of good info from knowledgeable folks in that thread. Things about the sanding disks, cutting the rubber, etc. I'd imagine you've already been doing lots of research, but on google searching the forums look up terms like "diamondized" "diamondizing" "subrail extension." They aren't all the same thing, but there is usually a lot of great discussion about cushion geometry and extending subrails and such in those threads.

As long as you're handy and try to be meticulous (and do your research), I think it's within your grasp. Now a proper mechanic might be able to do the job perfectly in a day, but since we're leaning and not a pro, it might take us a few weeks. But as long as you're careful and ask about things you don't know I think it's a good thing to learn about. Personally I didn't care about table setup at all but once I started messing with it, I found it fascinating. You can take a table that plays like crap and make it really play excelently. It just takes knowhow, time, and some precision. It's pretty fun though.

Ask questions, and please post pics of progress (we love that).

 

[BSealsBazooka]

I got the second set of rails yesterday and broke one down to measure. It turns out they're in great shape besides the exposed top coat finish. The cushions were never replaced since it was new, so the facing aren't chewed up at all. Just 2 small staple marks where the facings go. It's really nice to be able to do this part while my actual table remains playable.

Also in luck, the miter cuts on the original rails are a perfect 51 degrees and 12 down. The 141 is kinda hard to measure accurately across the compound miter, but math is math. Making a template of 141 and butting it up against the end rail shows a perfect fit though. I measured the actual table from the backside of the feather strip where the cloth meets the rail which is a dead 2". At that point across the corner pockets, the width of the opening is 4 9/16". Doing the math on the 141-degree slope from there out to the nose of the cushion shows that I would need a 1/8" extension on the sub-rails to achieve 4.5" at the mouth of the pocket with 3/16" facings.

I kinda want to strip and refinish the sun-damaged top coats on the exposed portions of the rails as I do this. I might look into the best way to do that since, again, I'm in no rush now.

 

[Ssonerai]

Nice to get an unmolested set of rails!

I kinda want to strip and refinish the sun-damaged top coats on the exposed portions of the rails as I do this. I might look into the best way to do that since, again, I'm in no rush now.

Will lacquer thinner soften it?
Or did they use a 2 part finish at that time?

 

[BSealsBazooka]

Nice to get an unmolested set of rails!



Will lacquer thinner soften it?
Or did they use a 2 part finish at that time?

No clue. Wood restoration isn't really a skill I have acquired yet. I'm more than good to finish wood from bare, but don't know any tricks like that. Is that a way to soften and rework the finish?

Quick question if anyone knows. Should the inlays come out before refinishing and be replaced? I can't imagine they would absorb stain like the wood, but this is another area that I have no experience in outside of guitars.

 

[Ssonerai]

If you can use chemical thinners or strippers effectively (as opposed to primarily abrasive/mechanical removal), often the finish will be blended by the time you are done.
What improvement would you hope to gain from staining mahogany? (or Sapele, or a look-alike)?

I asked about lacquer thinner because if the finish scrubs off easily with that product and a coarse green or white pad, it might be a fairly low effort job. Yielding a blended base ready for new finish after a bit of detail sanding. OTOH, there are fairly good, relatively health-benign strippers these days, too. Ideally, i like it when the finish is shellac & can be washed and blended with alcohol & coarse synthetic pads. Like the pre-depression era BBC tables. I would test any proposed chemical product on the inlays first to see if it eats into them.

As a woodworker who has worked on that part of tables, i would not remove the inlays for a whole bunch of reasons, not least chipping and dubbing the edges of the wood around them. If they are mother of pearl or abalone, they might not be easy to remove without damage. Unless you were planning to just refit new ones anyway.
It is also probable that the inlays each fit their respective location best, and are best in the original orientation in that location. There may be slight filler in some that is completely not obvious until it is gone. The old finish itself is a final fill. So there ends up being a lot to document and organize.

 

[BSealsBazooka]

Small update. We went on a tangent thinking about refinishing the rails. We used the backside of the rail skirts for testing since they're not visible and tried staining and dying a few sections. I found one combination of dyes that I liked that made it a deep red and looked great with both tournament blue and grey cloth. Then my wife had the idea to ebonize the wood using a solution made from vinegar and steel wood. Iron acetate? We made up a batch yesterday and tested it on a small section this morning. It's supposed to sit for at least 3 days, but we wanted to do daily tests to see how much it changes as the solution does its thing in the jar. Just on day 1, it looks pretty cool! Can't wait to see how it looks after the appropriate time for the reaction. The added bonus to this is that it just reacts with the tannin in the wood, and shouldn't affect the inlays at all.

 

[BSealsBazooka]

Here are some other pictures from our experiment on some unseen undersides. The purple was a cool idea, but it looks like crap and pops way too much. The second picture is the ebonizing solution after 24 hours with an oil rub to darken it more. If we can't get the ebonizing solution to darken how we want, we'll go with the India ink rub sealed with de-waxed shellac. (the shiny contrast on the dark black India ink.) I also included a pic of the raw wood with a danish oil finish. it looks nice, but I hate light colored tables.

I also think that I might just replace the rail sites with imitation ivory to make the project easier. I like the solid white more than the pearl inlays anyway. I'll probably make a test rail extension this week out of some 1/8" birch plywood that I picked up at the wood shop. Part of me feels like this will split easily, and that I should be using hardwood for such a small extension, but everyone is saying plywood is the way.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I rebuilt my table as well, I used the RKC method in extending my sub-rails. My table is made out of oak so I used oak for my extension. Now, I am no mechanic but since the extension is also covered with the rubber cushion facing I am not sure it matters but I chose hardwood. I glued and pin nailed it to hold them. Been beating on my table for months now and there are zero issues

 

[The_JV]

My efforts...

Caution: Not a pro. Some of the things I did have received negative comments by those with much greater experience.

Recommend: Seek out RKC. He commented within the linked thread.

Enjoy