How often do you change your spot?

S

simplestroke

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I know this all depends on the amount of play your table gets so lets assume a moderate to heavy amount. I recently had my table recovered and I'm starting to get a little dimple on the head spot. Is this avoidable? Would changing the spot regularly help this issue (or non-issue)? I am able to get excellent racks with the new cloth and would like to prolong this as much as possible. Any tips or suggestions? Thanks!

P.S. I do NOT tap the head ball.
 
tucson9ball

tucson9ball

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
The problem I have is that the glue on the back of the spot seems to dry up and it just gets loose.
Are there better quality spots? Brand names? I haven't checked into it much myself.
For the last few months, I just rack without using any spot. I used a black marker and put a dot where the center of the spot used to be.
Sorry, wasn't trying to hijack your thread but I saw the title and had a few questions of my own.:sorry:
 
RRfireblade

RRfireblade

Grammer Are For Stupids
Silver Member
It's unavoidable. Don't worry about it. The force of the break has to go somewhere , that's where it goes.

You definately want to use a spot of some sort or the cloth will wear thru there , I've even seen chips in the slate develop over time with no spot and heavy use.
 
S

simplestroke

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
RR: Thanks, that's kind of what I figured but thought I'd check.

Tucson: I haven't had any problems with the lick'em and stick'em spots but maybe try an adhesive spot. I know nothing of the different brands but I currently have a adhesive on right now and it has held up great.
 
Mike in MN

Mike in MN

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
RRfireblade said:
It's unavoidable. Don't worry about it. The force of the break has to go somewhere , that's where it goes.

You definately want to use a spot of some sort or the cloth will wear thru there , I've even seen chips in the slate develop over time with no spot and heavy use.
Click to expand...

Seriously? If this is actually true, I never knew this. Anyone else have information about this? I always told myself when I buy a new table, I won't use a spot because they just become a nuisance. This could change things for me if it turns out to be correct. Not that I'm questioning your knowledge, RR ... It's just odd I've never heard it before.
 
TXsouthpaw

TXsouthpaw

My tush hog
Silver Member
9BallMarksman said:
Seriously? If this is actually true, I never knew this. Anyone else have information about this? I always told myself when I buy a new table, I won't use a spot because they just become a nuisance. This could change things for me if it turns out to be correct. Not that I'm questioning your knowledge, RR ... It's just odd I've never heard it before.
Click to expand...

Its true. Unless ur playing all 1pocket and straight pool. Thats why people use a break cloth under the cue ball too. You can wear a hole in the cloth real fast without if you practice or play alot.
 
TX Poolnut

TX Poolnut

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I have been using the same paper-hole reinforcment circle since I changed my cloth a couple of years ago. It works perfectly.
 
RRfireblade

RRfireblade

Grammer Are For Stupids
Silver Member
9BallMarksman said:
Seriously? If this is actually true, I never knew this. Anyone else have information about this? I always told myself when I buy a new table, I won't use a spot because they just become a nuisance. This could change things for me if it turns out to be correct. Not that I'm questioning your knowledge, RR ... It's just odd I've never heard it before.
Click to expand...

Absolutely true.
 
sfleinen

sfleinen

14.1 & One Pocket Addict
Gold Member
Silver Member
Try not to use an SVB-esque "pop and drop" break

simplestroke said:
I know this all depends on the amount of play your table gets so lets assume a moderate to heavy amount. I recently had my table recovered and I'm starting to get a little dimple on the head spot. Is this avoidable? Would changing the spot regularly help this issue (or non-issue)? I am able to get excellent racks with the new cloth and would like to prolong this as much as possible. Any tips or suggestions? Thanks!

P.S. I do NOT tap the head ball.
Click to expand...

simplestroke:

While you can't 100% avoid this type of wear on the footspot (that is, unless, you play exclusively 1-pocket or 14.1), you can certainly minimize it.

One thing you can do in the minimization effort, is to avoid jumping on the SVB bandwagon with the "pop and drop" break. You know, the type of break where you intentionally hit slightly downwards on the cue ball, to get it slightly airborne when it hits the head ball, pops up in the air about a foot, and then drops backwards down onto the center of the table (hence the term, "pop and drop break"). This type of break, because the cue ball is airborne when it hits the head ball, puts even more downward force on the headball of the rack, speeding up the divoting process on that spot. A dead giveaway of this is not only the cue ball popping up in the air, but also when you see that headball jump up a bit -- as happens often with SVB's break -- because the cue ball landed "on" it, causing it to jump up. This type of break expedites the divoting process, causing the headball to start to sink into the cloth a bit from previous breaks (due to resting in a divot that has started to form in that spot, thus putting the headball's equator below the equator of the rest of the balls in the rack), and then, even when not intentionally using a "pop and drop" break, the cue ball will still pop up even when sliding into the headball. It's like a runaway train -- once the divot has started, it feeds itself.

When you break the rack, practice a break where you keep your cue as level as possible *at impact* with the cue ball. You can still create a lot of force with a sliding cue ball; you don't have to get that cue ball airborne as seems to be the fad these days! As an example, Evgeny Stalev has probably the most powerful break next to, say, Francisco Bustamante, and the cue ball never goes perceptibly airborne:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PkCG3q2PDa4#t=560

While this won't eliminate a divot forming, it'll help minimize it for a good while.

Hope this is helpful!
-Sean
 
Celtic

Celtic

AZB's own 8-ball jihadist
Silver Member
RRfireblade said:
It's unavoidable. Don't worry about it. The force of the break has to go somewhere , that's where it goes.

You definately want to use a spot of some sort or the cloth will wear thru there , I've even seen chips in the slate develop over time with no spot and heavy use.
Click to expand...

From personal experience I have not seen it. I took the spot off my table years ago and replaced it with a small black dot from a marker. I have broke perhaps 5,000 racks on the table in the years since and while I have the track from the side rail to the contact point and the wear in the spot the cueball is contacted near the side rail the actual "spot" section of the felt is not showing any wear at all.

The force of the break indeed has to go somewhere, and given the vector of the cueball should be parallel with the table surface for the most part and the contact points of the cueball and head ball are at equal vertical heights the force is going horizontally through the rack of balls and should have very little vertical force in either direction.

It is pretty obvious where the bulk of the force of the cueball goes, the momentum of that single cueball and kinetic energy that cueball has is tranfered to the ball that the cueball contacts and that energy in turn transfers through the whole rack moving all of the balls in the break. The force of the break does have to go somewhere, and THATS where virtually all of it goes, not into the table.
 
RRfireblade

RRfireblade

Grammer Are For Stupids
Silver Member
Believe as you wish.

The fact remains why the spot is there. The only time 100% of the break transfers to the rack is if the CB impacts
The headball in EXACTLY the same plane. The is an exceedingly rare occourance. I can tell you on a commercial
Level , I've had the cloth wear thru in less than a weekend after losing its spot.

Your mileage on a home table may of course vary.
 
scruffy1

scruffy1

New member
Silver Member
RRfireblade said:
Believe as you wish.

The fact remains why the spot is there. The only time 100% of the break transfers to the rack is if the CB impacts
The headball in EXACTLY the same plane. The is an exceedingly rare occourance. I can tell you on a commercial
Level , I've had the cloth wear thru in less than a weekend after losing its spot.

Your mileage on a home table may of course vary.[/QUOTE[/I]


You are absolutely 100% correct. I have seen this happen hundreds of times over 22 years of working on them. Of course different cloths will wear differently but we ALWAYS recommend a foot spot.
Click to expand...
 
greyghost

greyghost

Coast to Coast
Silver Member
Yes it will wear a hole if there is no spot...that happened to my last set of cloth, The spot was starting to peel so i took it off and just marked it. A few months later....hole under the 1ball right on the spot. Same as where you break from....happens all the time.

Grey GHost
 
Elephant Man

Elephant Man

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Wow I never thought of that. My spot fell off a couple years back and now I just eyeball the rack. I guess that makes consistent placement tougher but also makes for a larger area to wear through. Next purchase I make I will for sure add some spots to my cart.
 
Celtic

Celtic

AZB's own 8-ball jihadist
Silver Member
RRfireblade said:
Believe as you wish.

The fact remains why the spot is there. The only time 100% of the break transfers to the rack is if the CB impacts
The headball in EXACTLY the same plane. The is an exceedingly rare occourance. I can tell you on a commercial
Level , I've had the cloth wear thru in less than a weekend after losing its spot.

Your mileage on a home table may of course vary.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree that tables wear out like crazy at the headball spot, but the reason for this is because of people tapping the ball which DOES impart alot of vertical force down onto the cloth which in being squeezed between the object ball being struck and the slate causes the fibers of the cloth to break, once that initial weakness and broken fibers starts from the ball tapping it is a hole in no time. If people would simply stop tapping the headball, not possible in a pool hall or bar but on a home table if you are not a donk and don't tap the headball you don't "need" a spot.

Just my $0.02 from what I have seen first hand.
 
RRfireblade

RRfireblade

Grammer Are For Stupids
Silver Member
Celtic said:
I don't disagree that tables wear out like crazy at the headball spot, but the reason for this is because of people tapping the ball which DOES impart alot of vertical force down onto the cloth which in being squeezed between the object ball being struck and the slate causes the fibers of the cloth to break, once that initial weakness and broken fibers starts from the ball tapping it is a hole in no time. If people would simply stop tapping the headball, not possible in a pool hall or bar but on a home table if you are not a donk and don't tap the headball you don't "need" a spot.

Just my $0.02 from what I have seen first hand.
Click to expand...

That's just not true but that's fine, no biggie. :)

The OP is already getting dents on his 'recently' recovered table without tapping in the head ball. ;)

It's all good tho , have a good one. :wave:
 
greyghost

greyghost

Coast to Coast
Silver Member
RRfireblade said:
That's just not true but that's fine, no biggie. :)

The OP is already getting dents on his 'recently' recovered table without tapping in the head ball. ;)

It's all good tho , have a good one. :wave:
Click to expand...

It's the same here, been having that table up for a year and NOT ONCE has a ball been tapped in the rack, I don't do it and everyone knows that if they tap the balls in the rack I'll tap the balls on their head lol.

Both my roommate and I break with that pop jump stop break such as SVB uses. So the lead ball is getting plenty of downward force to over time break down the cloth. The same thing happens at the cue ball break spot, any table that brian jones plays on will have holes there, and streaks wanting to wear through the cloth like a train track....and thats with a LEVEL stroke!

Proof is in the pudding, happens too much to equipment...it sure as hell aint my imagination

OR! Maybe its just cloth trolls causing mischeif in the middle of the night while we sleep, they are closely related to the infamous sock monster...who lives more often than not in close proximity to the dryer.
 
RRfireblade

RRfireblade

Grammer Are For Stupids
Silver Member
Just an interesting thing too BTW. My local hall has 4 - 9"ers , one of them is a poorly shimmed tight pocket table that is pretty much 'owned' by our resident 1P'rs. That table has been missing the spot for about a week (there's actually one on there now finally) and in fact has 2 holes under the head spot now. They are all 860 tables so it does make sense for them to wear quickly but like I said , this table has more 1p and 14.1 than any other table in the house.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top