A question for all tech's.

realkingcobra

realkingcobra

Well-known member
Silver Member
You get a call to re-felt a table at someone's house, you ask what kind of table it is, the owner don't know, so you quote a price, and make an appointment to recover the table. You show up on the appointed date, go in and take a look at the table, once seeing it, you realize it's a piece of shit, throw away, particle board rail table...BUT...it has a real slate in it, because the owner tells you it's an OK table, because it IS a slate table...right? The first thing going through your mind, is number one, the price you quoted is way off for the amount of time you're going to have to spend on the table to even try and recover it, second...you're wondering if you even want to do the work.

My question is....what do you do?

Oh yeah, I forgot...the cushion rubber is hard as rock too.

Glen
 
Welcome to my world! Doing mostly residential work for over 20 years, this
happens all the time. it is very suprising the amount of people that do not know what they have. Way to expensive to drive around and give quotes all day. sometimes you get lucky and they know how to send you a photo.
As far as working on tables , we only do slate. As far as working on junk slate tables, we try and feel the cust. out. does he have a bunch of kids wanting to beat the ball around or does he think hes going on tour? Not everyon can afford to buy another table.I normally ask myself am i going to feel good about this when i am done.
We try not to be overly picky, we already have time involved and you hate to leave with no $ and nothing to do for a couple hours!Especially w/the price of gas!
 
step one refer sub to Glen.
step two open door run away.
step three turn corner run faster.
 
This is the exact reason I give free estimates first if it's local residantial work. I woud rather waste some time and gas to see if I want to do the job first then all the extra time fooling with a crap table.:D
 
I've lived/worked in various pockets around the country and this seemed more common (in my experience) while living up North. Especially in N.E. Ohio where there were tons of those passed off as pool tables. A big problem we ran into were the Willie Mosconi & Minnesota Fats tables probably manufactured for Sears or some other chain. The guy I worked for then, required us to do the best job possible as fast as possible unless it was absolutely beyond hope. But, this was a crook and proud of it.

Working for myself, I would tell them that "in good concious" I couldn't take their money for a table that probably won't play that much better, has seen it's better days and will cost them more than it's worth. In this area, a recover and rail replacement typically goes for between $375 - $600 (I've shopped around) and that would be money better spent on a new table if they really insist on having a pool table.

Great question Glen! I'm curious to see how everyone else handles it also.

Robin
 
realkingcobra said:
What if......they don't want a new table?

Glen
Click to expand...

We'll than its depends on how much you need the money. If your give them your honest oponion, and they still want the table done. I would either turn down the job or do it depending on if I need the money. I used to run into this problem alot when I ran small ads and quoted cheap, you end up getting the worn out table. Some people can't afford good quality billiards, doesn't mean they shouldn't play pool, sometimes there's a compromise.
 
I would honestly explain the work involved in this perticular table and explain he needs new rubber and would not be worth his money to continue with that table, and I would not put my work on a table that have rails hard as a rock, there would be no satisfaction from either party.
 
If the slate is in good condition, and the frame is good enough to get a good level, then I would suggest quoting a price for rebuilding from the slate up.

New poplar subrails with a very basic wood top rail, K-66's, plastic pockets, new cloth. Skip the aprons (since the table doesn't look like much to begin with). For maybe $600-$700 it is essentially a new table. Assuming you can do it that cheaply and still have a reasonable profit.
 
I walk into a few of these a year ,2 this week,yesterdays table had a tin frame and b.s. hardware so I need to make another trip to finish it and feel good about it.

Friday a guy calls me tells me he has a Brunswick table and he wants new cloth and cushions because he's having Thanksgiving at his house this year,so I quote him a price of $400 and $600 and I show up and it's a particle board table, with dead cushions,loose rails due to over tightening into the particle board, loose pockets and missing hardware.

The table needs alot of tlc but it is saveable. If he wants to pay me to do it for Thanksgiving how can I refuse? He's having 33 people come over and he even went over his wife's head and OK'd the extra $200 to replace the cushions , LOL!
 
realkingcobra said:
I'm waiting a little while before I give my answer...ya'll love it!

Glen
Click to expand...

Require a photo on all residential work. Especially if they don't know what they have.
 
I drove over an hour to move a 7ft table 2 miles for $300 brake down and reset up w\old cloth. When I got there it was a slatron table maybe 150 lbs of junk. She was going through a divorce so I told her that I cant do much with the table but I moved it and tweaked it the best I could for $40 dollars to cover gas and I learned from it to ask customer's if they can pick up the table with 1 hand I cant work on those tables.

She left another check in my truck for the rest of the amount for being honest with her and to this day I still have the check and never cashed it been ovr 6 years now.


Sometimes I take the customers old table in on trade for one of my other tables I have in storage or pick up off of Craigslist.. I generaly junk the table and keep the slates for future parts or rebuild the table and donate it to a church or boys\girls club in the area.


I learned if there is no name plate on the table charge double or more you can alwas give a discount when you get there and see what it realy is.


Glen's answer is a simple but very effective way to seperate the toys from the real tables.

Craig
 
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