FWIW: Here’s a portable double-height bridge I made for myself about 25 years ago. Super inexpensive and easy to make. I’ve used it during hundreds of Straight Pool casual and tournament games. I even loan it often to my opponents and also players on nearby tables who can’t reach a pack-obstructed shot (and who happen to know about the portable solution I always keep in my cue case wherever I play).
(I've learned to never loan it to nearby tables during *tournaments* because of the predictable inter-opponent friction that might arise between the shooter and his seated opponent who could understandably object to the shooter becoming “unstuck” from his/her interfering-balls bridging dilemma.)
The photo shows it slipped onto (and firmly gripping) a typical house cue (it fits any 12 mm-plus normal-thickness house cue via the rubber grommet I extracted from one of my $2.00 plastic “moose-head” slip-on portable bridges.
The larger diameter black ring is a plastic shim I made from the lid of an old DVD case. The shim enables the grommet to fit perfectly on the scrap piece of approximately ¼ inch thickness acrylic I used for crafting the body. Any material for the shim would be fine. (I worked the grommet/shim combo into an appropriate 3/4 inch hole drilled into the plastic body.)
As I intended, the fully transparent acrylic allows for a completely unobstructed view of the interfering balls -- taking all the guesswork out of exactly where the cue tip; shaft; balls; and bridge head are in relation to each other. Who needs more guesswork when you’re in a dicey bridging situation.
On this homemade bridge head, the cue resting point is 7 inches off the table surface which is ¼ inch higher than the typical 6 ¾ height achievable with any typical ad hoc combination of two separate, loose or slot-locked normal room bridges.
After about the first 20 years of use I finally sewed up a little “case” for the head out of a scrap of Simonis 860. Too late to save it from the scratches and dings visible in the photo, but it prevents any more from happening while bouncing around in my cue case.
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Since yesterday's post, I was asked by several AZBers today about where to obtain the plastic, and which tools can/should be used to create their own double-height bridge similar to mine. Here are my hopefully beneficial suggestions relating to those two questions and I'm happy to add that only a few very basic woodworking skills and basic woodworking tools are needed:
Look in your local Yellow Pages (hard copy or online) with the keyword "plastics" and any local dealer or "plastic displays" mfgr. who sells or works with plastic sheets, rods, etc. will definitely sell -- or usually just give you as a freebie -- a remnant scrap piece of nominally 1/4 inch sheet plastic (nowadays slightly less than that size if it's made abroad and comes as 5 mm.) sheet stock.
Any remnant that yields at least an approx. 3" x 9" piece with which to work and extract your new double-height bridge from it. Your local Home Depot or Lowes will sell you a square foot of it, as will most any hardware store that sizes acrylic and polycarbonate (the generic term for Lexan, as acrylic is for Plexiglas and its clones) for folks who frame their own pictures or repair their own windows).
If none of those dealers and plastics forming companies are near to you, alternately you can order a square foot online at quite reasonable prices from any one of numerous googled vendors, but you'll pay a little bit of shipping. A square foot will yield 5 transparent double-height bridges like the one in my photo.
Virtually all woodworking hand tools and woodworking machines work excellently for machining, drilling or sawing plastics, with a few exceptions like hand planes and machine planers. With appropriate blades and tool bits if you know the basics of working with wood, the same skills apply to cutting, filing, and drilling plastics -- easily enough skill to make your own double-height bridge. (Important note: Feed a little slower when you drill plastics, lest the bit seizes and possibly hurts you if the part isn't securely fastened while being machined.)
If all you own are a hacksaw, a flat file and a half-inch (or less) round file, plus a vise (or two clamps) to hold the plastic while you shape it -- that's enough to shape the whole thing, then have a friend with a drill press drill out an appropriately-sized hole in which to insert whatever rubber grommet you already have or have googled to obtain online(they only cost a few cents each.) The hacksaw, a couple files and two clamps can be gotten for less than $5.00 *total* at any "dollar store" near you.
PM me if you need any more helpful info. Glad to help.
Arnaldo
(I've learned to never loan it to nearby tables during *tournaments* because of the predictable inter-opponent friction that might arise between the shooter and his seated opponent who could understandably object to the shooter becoming “unstuck” from his/her interfering-balls bridging dilemma.)
The photo shows it slipped onto (and firmly gripping) a typical house cue (it fits any 12 mm-plus normal-thickness house cue via the rubber grommet I extracted from one of my $2.00 plastic “moose-head” slip-on portable bridges.
The larger diameter black ring is a plastic shim I made from the lid of an old DVD case. The shim enables the grommet to fit perfectly on the scrap piece of approximately ¼ inch thickness acrylic I used for crafting the body. Any material for the shim would be fine. (I worked the grommet/shim combo into an appropriate 3/4 inch hole drilled into the plastic body.)
As I intended, the fully transparent acrylic allows for a completely unobstructed view of the interfering balls -- taking all the guesswork out of exactly where the cue tip; shaft; balls; and bridge head are in relation to each other. Who needs more guesswork when you’re in a dicey bridging situation.
On this homemade bridge head, the cue resting point is 7 inches off the table surface which is ¼ inch higher than the typical 6 ¾ height achievable with any typical ad hoc combination of two separate, loose or slot-locked normal room bridges.
After about the first 20 years of use I finally sewed up a little “case” for the head out of a scrap of Simonis 860. Too late to save it from the scratches and dings visible in the photo, but it prevents any more from happening while bouncing around in my cue case.
_________________________________________________
Since yesterday's post, I was asked by several AZBers today about where to obtain the plastic, and which tools can/should be used to create their own double-height bridge similar to mine. Here are my hopefully beneficial suggestions relating to those two questions and I'm happy to add that only a few very basic woodworking skills and basic woodworking tools are needed:
Look in your local Yellow Pages (hard copy or online) with the keyword "plastics" and any local dealer or "plastic displays" mfgr. who sells or works with plastic sheets, rods, etc. will definitely sell -- or usually just give you as a freebie -- a remnant scrap piece of nominally 1/4 inch sheet plastic (nowadays slightly less than that size if it's made abroad and comes as 5 mm.) sheet stock.
Any remnant that yields at least an approx. 3" x 9" piece with which to work and extract your new double-height bridge from it. Your local Home Depot or Lowes will sell you a square foot of it, as will most any hardware store that sizes acrylic and polycarbonate (the generic term for Lexan, as acrylic is for Plexiglas and its clones) for folks who frame their own pictures or repair their own windows).
If none of those dealers and plastics forming companies are near to you, alternately you can order a square foot online at quite reasonable prices from any one of numerous googled vendors, but you'll pay a little bit of shipping. A square foot will yield 5 transparent double-height bridges like the one in my photo.
Virtually all woodworking hand tools and woodworking machines work excellently for machining, drilling or sawing plastics, with a few exceptions like hand planes and machine planers. With appropriate blades and tool bits if you know the basics of working with wood, the same skills apply to cutting, filing, and drilling plastics -- easily enough skill to make your own double-height bridge. (Important note: Feed a little slower when you drill plastics, lest the bit seizes and possibly hurts you if the part isn't securely fastened while being machined.)
If all you own are a hacksaw, a flat file and a half-inch (or less) round file, plus a vise (or two clamps) to hold the plastic while you shape it -- that's enough to shape the whole thing, then have a friend with a drill press drill out an appropriately-sized hole in which to insert whatever rubber grommet you already have or have googled to obtain online(they only cost a few cents each.) The hacksaw, a couple files and two clamps can be gotten for less than $5.00 *total* at any "dollar store" near you.
PM me if you need any more helpful info. Glad to help.
Arnaldo
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