Accuracy?

J

jdempsey

Registered
Ok so, not finding a local mechanic I was happy with, I assembled my GC (turned out to be a III, not a 4) myself.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, I did one or two steps every few days, taking my time and reading everything I could.

As warned by RKC here, I of course ended up with a couple of mis-matched rails, since the people I bought the table from had a few of them. I'm on touch with them to find the right pieces but I put it together to play regardless. Squaring/aligning the rails as best I could.

After putting the rails/skirt on however, a couple of spots shifted a bit out of level.

Previous to this I got the whole thing to under .005 (not more than touching the primary division line on a Starret 98-18), mostly just a couple of corners I couldn't get dead up, although even just leaning on the table a little would throw it that much.

After I put the rails on, the most egregious corner is touching the second division line (the next one from the dead level point) low into the corner pocket.


Is this accurate enough? One or two spots are to a lesser degree, and I'm not even sure I can measure this accurately with the cloth on.

Regardless, I'll be taking the rails back off when I get the matching ones that are wrong, and I plan to recover with Simonis soon. The cloth that came with the table was new, but I have no idea what it is. It didn't have any branding on it, and had a white cloth backer?

It was a bit of a chore, but I got it stretched tight and flat afaik. In the very center of the table I can, if I have moist hands, shift it maybe 1/8" or so? I'm assuming this is acceptable? I had to try a couple of different stretch lengths before I got it where I could get the side pockets pulled down and stapled without ripping the cloth, and still barely got it with the last stretch at like 2.5" linear.


Anyway, thanks for all the help here, Glenn's sticky and various other posts were essential to getting this together.

Cheers!
 
I set up my Gold Crown myself because I was in the same boat, I could not find anyone qualified locally to do it. I used my Starrett 98-12 to level it, depending where you move the level on the table it may be as much as 1 graduation either direction from dead level. Im thinking they are so sensitive that its all but impossible to get the entire table surface dead level with a machinists level. My table plays nice, does not roll off at all. Im sure someone here will let me know if I am wrong. :smile:
 
fastone371 said:
I set up my Gold Crown myself because I was in the same boat, I could not find anyone qualified locally to do it. I used my Starrett 98-12 to level it, depending where you move the level on the table it may be as much as 1 graduation either direction from dead level. Im thinking they are so sensitive that its all but impossible to get the entire table surface dead level with a machinists level. My table plays nice, does not roll off at all. Im sure someone here will let me know if I am wrong. :smile:
Click to expand...

Thanks Fastone. Yeah, I shot quite a few racks yesterday, and while I did notice occasional erratic activity when a ball was coming to a stop, I think level of the table isn't the cause.

I'm currently playing with what I expect are chinese balls, that feel and sound all sorts of wrong and shitty. They were provided with the table, in a box that resembles the aramith balls, but has no labeling. (Black, with white circles on the box, but no "made in belgium" or anything otherwise)

So first order is to acquire some super pros.

Secondly, whatever this cloth is, it plays slower than smoke off shit.

Third, the rails had already been covered, which made life easier for me doing the cloth, but they aren't very well done. Dismissing the fact that the mis-matched rail has a cushion that isn't even the same as the others (obviously shorter in height when you examine the underside of it), you can clearly see that the rest are mounted unevenly to the rails.

Banking in general is erratic.



Obviously, I need to just get the whole thing recovered in Simonis 760 or 860HR, and have the rails redone while I'm at it.

Hopefully I can find a pro that's willing to make the trip up here to do that, as I'd prefer not to get into such a big project myself. It's not the scope of work that's concerning, just the lack of confidence to know that I'm doing things correctly.
 
Also, fwiw, you're right about the sensitivity of the machinist levels. The graduations of these are .005 from one line to the next, that's the thickness of a piece of paper.

The brunswick manual suggested 0.020 was acceptable overall, so I assumed as long as I wasn't more than one graduation off and evenly mated at the seams, that was sufficient.
 
Actually, is it feasible to send my rails off to have new cushions installed and recovered?

Or is it necessary to make adjustments with the table?
 
jdempsey said:
Actually, is it feasible to send my rails off to have new cushions installed and recovered?

Or is it necessary to make adjustments with the table?
Click to expand...

It is possible to send the rails to a qualified tech to have them calibrated and may be your best option. But I would wait till you hear back from the seller to see if they will provide you with the correct and matched rails before spending the time and money to do so.
 
cnyncrvr said:
It is possible to send the rails to a qualified tech to have them calibrated and may be your best option. But I would wait till you hear back from the seller to see if they will provide you with the correct and matched rails before spending the time and money to do so.
Click to expand...


Thanks, and yes, I plan to do that first certainly, but regardless they'll need to be redone.
 
I highly suggest that you have the rails recalibrated. I seriously can't believe

the difference that it made with my table. If you really enjoy pool and you

really want your table to play correctly,it's the best (pool) investment

that you can ever make.

I shot on my Gandy 9 ft for over a year with f'ed up rails. Then I sent them

to JZMechanix (Jack Zimmerman) and it plays unbelievable now. My only

regret is that I could not afford the rail work and to have Jack come and

set it up for me. I did the best I could with leveling the table and now

it's settled in to the carpet more, so I have to take it apart and do it

again.

OK, so with all that said lol, get your rails recalibrated when you can.

You'll love it!! Oh and buy the Simonis DVD that RKC made for covering

your table. You won't be sorry you spent that money either!!
 
Thanks Bill, yeah, I definitely see what you mean. This table rolls slow, but much better than any bar table I've played on, but sometimes I'll hit a rail and it'll bank the opposite direction from what it should.

I've tried it over and over on certain spots to make sure I'm not imagining things or putting funny english on the cue, and it's repeatable.


I was hoping to be able to wait a while before recovering, but it's obvious I'm going to just have to go ahead and have it done as soon as I can locate the matching rails.
 
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