Wear lines showing along the rails

I've always said that the wear lines (or tracks) near the rails are lighter in color because of the balls that roll along the rails.
It's easier to say that.. as most folks think that. IMO wear tracks aren't from rolling wear, but are lighter because the balls
are continually hitting the cushions and pocket facings. The cushion nose is always higher than the ball equator, and pocket
facings have down angles.. When the rail cushions and facings get hit many times over, the balls will get pushed downward... into the cloth.
That would cause lighter spots, similar to multiple table ball marks. The marks would then be in a long string along the rails.

Those tracks wouldn't only be somewhat lighter in color, but they probably would be somewhat deeper than the cloth surface... Again IMO

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jtompilot said:

Those wear lines are much worse closer to the pocket. I recently played on a table that the cloth looked almost completely worn thru close to the two bottom corners.

Click to expand...

The closer to the pockets (especially corners) the more pronounced the wear (track) lines.. More balls are aimed to hit the corner pockets with speed. Some games only allow the use of corner pockets to score.

Something you might consider is the pocket width.. The balls can only pocket if the ball center (where it contacts the cloth) is either on a track, or between the 2 tracks.. The object ball center needs to be 1 1/8" from the pocket facings (center on a track) to fit inside.. 4 1/2" pockets minus the ball diameter only leaves 2 1/4" for the ball center to enter.

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