A "Thank You" to RealKingCobra

mike253

Flash
Silver Member
Glen (RealKingCobra) recently spent 6 days working his magic on my table. While the table turned out absolutely amazing, that's not what this thread is about. If you do a search, you'll find hundreds of pictures of Glen's work and a ton of threads about how great tables play after he touches them. Seems that every time he visits someone, they do a big write up showing before and after pictures and heaping praise on Glen's ability to transform broken down, used up tables into top notch equipment.

What you don't often read about is the character Glen possesses and the respect that he shows to his customers and their homes. It doesn't take more than about a minute on the phone with Glen to realize that he's an incredibly trust worthy person. On the day he arrived at my home, we spent a few minutes looking over my table, then I had to head off to work. Without hesitation, I paid him in full before he ever touched the table and handed him my garage door opener so he could come and go as he pleased while I was at work.

During the 6 days he was at my house, it seemed like Glen's phone never stopped ringing. There were calls from other mechanics, customers with a table in their home, room owners, etc.,. It didn't matter who the caller was, each person was treated the same. Glen gave them his full attention and never told them he was busy or tried to hurry them off the phone. On Friday, I called Glen and told him that my friend who originally installed the table for me wanted to meet him but that I understood if he didn't have time. Glen spent over 2 hours with him showing and explaining what he was doing to my rails, giving him tips and advice, and answering questions.

Over the weekend, I finally got a chance to spend a big chunk of time watching and talking to Glen. I've spent years building and working on guns and I know how distracting it can be to have a customer standing over you while you're working so I tried to stay out of the way. It'd have been easy for Glen to let me do that, but he encouraged me to ask questions. When I thanked him for basically letting me get in the way, he thanked me for wanting to learn.

By Tuesday, my garage (which had basically been converted into a wood shop) was full of saw dust from all of the rail work and I knew there were several bolt holes that needed to be re-drilled in the slate down in the basement. I made it clear to Glen that I didn't need the garage or the basement to be be cleaned up and that I'd planned to take care of both after he left. Since I knew he'd be gone by the time I got home from work that night, I thanked him again for the hard work and headed out. When I got home Tuesday night, I found that both the garage and the basement were literally cleaner than before Glen arrived.

So once again, thank you, Glen! It was a pleasure talking to you about pool tables and about life. You are a genuine person, a hard worker, a craftsman, an artist, and a perfectionist. You are welcome back in my home any time and you have my phone number if there's ever anything I can do to help you out.
 
But... You're surely biased.

Because your table went from sh1t to shinola!!! ;) You lucky SOB!

I can't think of a better testimonial and I'd think Glen is smiling reading this - and that people like you who truly appreciate what he does and who he is - makes it all the more worthwhile for him.
 
Thank you Mike, you and your wife Amanda were GREAT hosts to be around, you opened your house to me to take showers when I wanted, and your garage to work in because it's FREEZING outside at your house, that was a BIG help, and you were really serious about wanting to know the how, what and why's of your pool table as to know how much it was going to change from before and after. I've never been bothered by a customer/friend that has wanted to watch what I do, and ask questions as I'm very confident in the work I do, so working under watchful eyes has never bothered me, or made me nerveous....LOL. Your table turned out no less than I'd ever expected it to, and plays at the same level as any other table I've worked on in the past, all I can ever do when working on a pool table...is the BEST I can do, anything less is not acceptable in my book. Have fun with the 1,000's of hours I know you'll be playing on your table, and make sure John comes over and checks it out. He called me to thank me for showing him how to staple the rails he was going to be working on, and was quite surprised as to how easy my way was, and very pleased with his finished work...I'm glad I could help him out.

Glen
 
I've lurked reading the table threads and just wanted to mentioned that it has been pleasure to see a true master craftsman at work. These type of people are becoming rarer and rarer.

I've learned a lot about tables from just reading and thanks for sharing your projects.
 
I've lurked reading the table threads and just wanted to mentioned that it has been pleasure to see a true master craftsman at work. These type of people are becoming rarer and rarer.

I've learned a lot about tables from just reading and thanks for sharing your projects.

Thank you very much, aside from actually training someone, show and tell is really about the only way to try and impact this industry with change. By educating the customers as to what's a better way of doing something on a pool table, knowledge becomes a powerful tool when it comes to talking to those who do work in this industry, as in..."if you can't do the work to an acceptable level, then let me know and I'll find someone that can"!..."Because I've seen BETTER"!

Glen
 
Glen is a one of a kind type of guy. Super nice, honest, and has a wealth of knowledge. He's the mac daddy of all table doctors.
 
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