American heritage pocket size questions

[Gravey39]

I’m buying an American heritage table on Tuesday. The guy took it apart in order to refinish the table. So the rails are off it. I’ve set up, leveled, re-railed and re-felted several tables. So I was just going to do so myself. Just had a question about pocket size dimensions. So local league plays on valleys and some diamond 8’ and 9’. I wanted to cut the pockets to kind of be in the middle ground of those and play “fair”. Any suggestions on angles and size?

 

[Hard Knock Cues]

Someone is going to come along and say "Do a thread search and you'll get your answer".

Here's a little something to help.

12 deg. Down cut.

 

[Gravey39]

Someone is going to come along and say "Do a thread search and you'll get your answer".

Here's a little something to help.

12 deg. Down cut.

Yeah I bet lol. I haven’t posted on here for a couple years but I definitely know how it is. Thank you for posting that. One of the main things I want to make sure is the feel of the pocket. Like what size and angles do people think feel the best and plays fair. I definitely want the pockets to be on the tighter side of things, but not so tight that it’s not fun for some other people to play on. Like my little cousin, he will come play often. He’s alright at pool, but just now really getting into it. He’d most likely be a mid 3 level shooter. I don’t want the table to be too hard for him. I can always change it later on down the road, that wouldn’t be a big deal. My 13 year old nephew wants to start shooting pool also. I definitely don’t want buckets as pockets on the table though too lol. Then for my play, I wanted to kind of fine the middle ground for size on the tables I shoot on for league, which are valleys and diamonds. I read that sometimes you can’t just change the pocket size or the table won’t play fair. So kind of looking for a personal preference.

 

[boogieman]

Yeah I bet lol. I haven’t posted on here for a couple years but I definitely know how it is. Thank you for posting that. One of the main things I want to make sure is the feel of the pocket. Like what size and angles do people think feel the best and plays fair. I definitely want the pockets to be on the tighter side of things, but not so tight that it’s not fun for some other people to play on. Like my little cousin, he will come play often. He’s alright at pool, but just now really getting into it. He’d most likely be a mid 3 level shooter. I don’t want the table to be too hard for him. I can always change it later on down the road, that wouldn’t be a big deal. My 13 year old nephew wants to start shooting pool also. I definitely don’t want buckets as pockets on the table though too lol. Then for my play, I wanted to kind of fine the middle ground for size on the tables I shoot on for league, which are valleys and diamonds. I read that sometimes you can’t just change the pocket size or the table won’t play fair. So kind of looking for a personal preference.

4 1/2" is a good size. It's been the standard pro cut for quite a few years. Now events will have ridiculously small pockets, they play ok with new cloth, but you don't want 4 1/8" once the cloth starts getting wear on it.

4 1/2" will tighten up a serious player's game, but not be so unforgiving that a casual player will hate it.

 

[Hard Knock Cues]

I also think if you're trying to mimic the tables you play on for League, you might want to measure their pockets and maybe just go a little tighter.

 

[garczar]

If you're just gonna shim to get it tight it will play like crap. Table probably has 5" corners i'm guessing and to do it right means a subrail extension. If you can do that yourself great, if not its gonna run you about a grand to have it done. You can use the thick facings sold by Classic and get them around 4.5 which is more than tight enough.

 

[boogieman]

This is a thread where I tightened up an Olhausen and fixed it's notorious bad pocket geometry. Pretty good info from mechanics in there. Please note, this is not the "correct" way of doing it, which involves subrail extensions and new cushions. The way I did it worked, and it played very well. Olhausen is a nice table, but it's a furniture grade. IMO it's not worth the effort and expense to do it the correct way on a furniture grade table. American Heritage is a good table but it's kind of in the same boat as Olhausen. The juice to do it "correct" may not be worth the squeeze. It's basically going to run you at least $1.5K to do it the correct way and unless a furniture table has some kind of serious sentimental value, it's not worth putting the cost of the table into the table again to tweak it IMO.

Forget double shimming, triple shimming etc. Buy a thicker shim and go from there. It will play better in most cases.