Thanks for the response 3Kushn. -- well, the wife and I love to play pool, played on leagues for recreation for years, i achieved the top handicaps in the different leagues and lost interest in paying each week, ( got real expensive for the two of us after Dues/Gas/Drinks/food if running late. ) -- We are buying a new home that will finally have room for a table although it will have to be the Living Room. lol. --
1.) We do want it to look nice in the home, I know alot of people don't like the furniture
style tables, but we do and are not Pro's.
2.) I am just uncertain if it is as good as the newer ones, although it seems to be built like a tank.
everything is HEAVY. No metal brackets, parts are all either all wood or thick wood layers.
3.) I am going to try and call Schmidt and see if they can give me any info. I am just hoping back in
2000 that they did not make 3 tiers of tables and we ended up with the lowest tier, as website
now only seems to sell 2 tiers: Expensive and Very Expensive..lol.
4.) The Slate says "Italian Slate" but tI thought they only used Belgium Slate.
5.) Had to Rubber Hammer the Frame apart to put pieces in the SUV's to transport.
Luckily it was not Glued together or I'm not sure what I would have done. BUT I did not see
any Dowel Rods holding it together which kind of scares me as I thought i remember reading
that they used dowels.
6.) I guess my largest Fear is that this is some kind of "Frankenstein Build".
7.) I'm guessing that after Pro Setup - New Cushions - New Simonis Felt - This table should play
halfway decent i'm hoping.
Sorry about all the numbered sentences but I always think it makes it easier for people to read,
and I appreciate any thoughts, insights, and responses.
I understand everyone has different opinions on everything and like to listen to all, no matter what
their response is.
Thanks..
Just going through your list
If you like furniture style tables, that's fine and I think Schmidtt is one of the better choices for that style table.
There's so few Schmidtt tables. I really haven't seen how they're put together. I think I'd prefer an older table than newer. My brother had one similar to yours and it played fine.
Normally dowels were used as locating pins and allows for temporary setup prior to inserting the bolts.
Italian Slate in my opinion is the best there is. Of course like many things there different grades of slate. Generally Italian is better than Brazilian. Some will argue that. I've never heard of Belgian slates.
The main parts should have S/N's and they should all match. At least they used to stamp the frame, legs and rails with numbers.
Decent rubber should be good for around 30 years. You may not need to replace the cushions. If there's a way to test the rails first I'd do that before simply changing them. And when it comes to this particularly and the rest of the setup as well, choose a real pro. Do not use people from some store that happens to sell and set up tables. You very likely will not be happy with a Watkins, or Mr Pool Bar and Stool outfit. I suggest you go to the Table Mechanic section on AZB and choose someone from that list.
What I think Schmidtt has done business plan wise is said Hey we will never be able to compete in the price game with China in the home table market, so lets build good to very good tables and get what we need price wise. In other words lets incorporate some if not all of the high quality build features we know we can do and sell to the smaller market.
Schmidtt has been in business nearly as long as Brunswick an they didn't suffer a devastating fire destroying nearly all their drawings, blueprints and history like Brunswick did.