An Observation About Gandy Rails.

mnorwood

mnorwood

Moon
Silver Member
I don't usually brag about my abilities, however, my kicking game is extremely strong. Unless all pathways are blocked I kick out of a safety the vast majority of the time.

The only time I struggle is when I play on gandy tables. Is this just imagined or are gandy rails dead? I attempted to play a kick last night that I make 999 out of a 1000 and the rail was comatose. I won the tournament but I left frustrated that I was missing so many kicks.
 
I don't know anything about Gandy tables in general but unless you play on them at different locations, it is more than likely that the pool room owner just hasn't bothered to tighten up the rail bolts in a long time.

Depending on the temperature/humidity consistency in the room (or lack thereof) the bolts should be snugged up AT LEAST once a year. In my home, I do it twice a year.

Regards,
Jim
 
mnorwood said:
I don't usually brag about my abilities, however, my kicking game is extremely strong. Unless all pathways are blocked I kick out of a safety the vast majority of the time.

The only time I struggle is when I play on gandy tables. Is this just imagined or are gandy rails dead? I attempted to play a kick last night that I make 999 out of a 1000 and the rail was comatose. I won the tournament but I left frustrated that I was missing so many kicks.
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I've had Gandy and Gold Crowns in my room at the same time, so I have a very good idea how they both play. From my experience, the Gandy rails are more lively than the Crowns. That's neither good or bad, just an observation.

With that in mind, Gandy hasn't been in business for years. If a room has Gandy tables in it, some, if not all of the tables are starting to get to the point where they may need new rails installed.

The symptoms you describe mean that the rails need replacing or they are loose and need the bolts tightened. There may be other reasons as well. Humidity being one.

Gene
 
Cuedog said:
I've had Gandy and Gold Crowns in my room at the same time, so I have a very good idea how they both play. From my experience, the Gandy rails are more lively than the Crowns. That's neither good or bad, just an observation.

With that in mind, Gandy hasn't been in business for years. If a room has Gandy tables in it, some, if not all of the tables are starting to get to the point where they may need new rails installed.

The symptoms you describe mean that the rails need replacing or they are loose and need the bolts tightened. There may be other reasons as well. Humidity being one.

Gene
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Here is the situation: 1. The room owner does not take much pride in his establishment. It could very well be that the bolts are loose. 2. This room is just south of houston and last night they propped open the door and the place was very damp. 3. The tables are very old.

Now that I think about it these conditions are the same for the other rooms where I have played on gandy's.

Thanks for the feedback.

Best,
Marcus
 
Gandy's have a higher profile on their rubbers.... Which causes the balls to react differently...
 
this is a dumb question maybe, but do all brands of pool table come with their own cushions, meaning their own brand? I.e. there are 'gandy' brand rails that ship with all new* gandys but aren't sold separately (unlike K-66 or whatever)? Or do they all come with 3rd party rails that the manufacturer or customer picks?

And how can the rail be dead if the ball's hitting the bumper/cushions? I guess the bolts or whatever fastens the cushion to the rail can be loose so the ball comes off less lively? I didn't realize it could affect the ball much.
 
CreeDo said:
this is a dumb question maybe, but do all brands of pool table come with their own cushions, meaning their own brand? I.e. there are 'gandy' brand rails that ship with all new* gandys but aren't sold separately (unlike K-66 or whatever)? Or do they all come with 3rd party rails that the manufacturer or customer picks?

And how can the rail be dead if the ball's hitting the bumper/cushions? I guess the bolts or whatever fastens the cushion to the rail can be loose so the ball comes off less lively? I didn't realize it could affect the ball much.
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Most tables come with the rails and rubber specific to that particular brand, although some companies do offer some options or alternatives.


There are many things that can cause a rail, or part of a rail to become "dead". Some of these include; the rubber separating from the rail, the bolts holding the rail to the table becoming loose, the rubber becoming deformed, the rubber becoming dried out and hard, or the rail being too low. When these things happen, balls contacting the rail will rebound at a much different speed, and at a much different angle than it normaly would.
 
CreeDo said:
this is a dumb question maybe, but do all brands of pool table come with their own cushions, meaning their own brand? I.e. there are 'gandy' brand rails that ship with all new* gandys but aren't sold separately (unlike K-66 or whatever)? Or do they all come with 3rd party rails that the manufacturer or customer picks?

And how can the rail be dead if the ball's hitting the bumper/cushions? I guess the bolts or whatever fastens the cushion to the rail can be loose so the ball comes off less lively? I didn't realize it could affect the ball much.
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Loose bolts can make the rail dead. Or loose rubber coming unglued from the wood. But it's usually how tight the cloth is on the rail that makes the difference. Look at a Diamond when they set it up for a tournament, you will see stretch marks where the staples are pulling the cloth very tight on the rail where each staple is. My cloths been on for 7 years or so and you can still see the strain on the simoniz and it's still tight and super live with about 50 year old side bolted rails.

Gandy's are usually too live, they will bounce up and give crazy reactions when humid, and bounce too quickly sometimes to take any spin.

unknownpro
 
desert1pocket said:
.... the rubber becoming dried out and hard, ...
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The room where I usually play has had to change about 60 sections of rubber on 24 tables due to the rubber going dead. This is on tables that were new about 12 years ago. No help from the manufacturer.
 
Bob Jewett said:
The room where I usually play has had to change about 60 sections of rubber on 24 tables due to the rubber going dead. This is on tables that were new about 12 years ago. No help from the manufacturer.
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Same with the room where I usually play, except they haven't replaced nearly enough of them. Makes position play interesting (no 7-railers on these tables, sjm).

-Andrew
 
BPG24 said:
Gandy's have a higher profile on their rubbers.... Which causes the balls to react differently...
Click to expand...

This is the correct answer. All other factors mentioned are very good variables, but the fact is that tables are not created equal and they contact the balls at different points on the vertical axis. Even though I play on them all the time, I HATE GANDYs.
 
I always having problem to adapt my game to Gandy tables. I usually have problems to adjust the speed with it. The Gandys that I played were very fast in my case.
 
PROG8R said:
This is the correct answer. All other factors mentioned are very good variables, but the fact is that tables are not created equal and they contact the balls at different points on the vertical axis. Even though I play on them all the time, I HATE GANDYs.
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i used help work on tables.... And we got this complaint alot... Some pool rooms had us order brunswick rubbers for their Gandys...

The guy I worked for had been working on and building tables for 25+ years, i learned alot
 
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I like our gandys but I'm biased towards my favorite local pool hall.

But I did notice that on one of the tables with fast simonis, the cueball hops all the time after contacting a rail while moving with lots of topspin, apparently because the rails are too low (or maybe just one of the rails, it happens a lot on the foot rail)

What I don't get is... when the rails are connected to the table frame, they can only be connected in one place more or less, right? No way to make them higher or lower... ditto the frame itself in relation to the bed. So how do these rails get too low? Are all the gandys too low, and it just shows up a lot on the fast table with 760 cloth? Or is there something wrong with how it's assembled?

I noticed something else... I recently played in a different pool hall where the cloth looked a bit nappier, and somehow felt rougher or slower, yet everything seemed to roll and break apart as well as or better than the simonis 860 I'm used to. I don't think it was simonis. What's happening here?
 
BPG24 said:
Gandy's have a higher profile on their rubbers.... Which causes the balls to react differently...
Click to expand...
If this were true about ALL Gandy's then you would see the balls hopping up all the time on every shot. I believe that this happens when the table is not properly maintained. I could be wrong.

If you think about it, there isn't much room for error when it come to where the ball and the rail come together. Too high or too low will cause the ball to reverse the direction of spin or to hop up. There is no way that Gandy sold as many tables as they did with this happening continually. A good mechanic can correct this.

Gene
 
Cuedog said:
If this were true about ALL Gandy's then you would see the balls hopping up all the time on every shot. I believe that this happens when the table is not properly maintained. I could be wrong.

If you think about it, there isn't much room for error when it come to where the ball and the rail come together. Too high or too low will cause the ball to reverse the direction of spin or to hop up. There is no way that Gandy sold as many tables as they did with this happening continually. A good mechanic can correct this.

Gene
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OK, well I don't have as much experience with them as the guy who taught me about them... But many other people believe the statement I made was true... Including many table repairmen that I have met
 
No argument. Just asking if it makes sense that this would be true of a table that sold at a very high rate to tons of pool halls across America and around the world.

Gene
 
Cuedog said:
No argument. Just asking if it makes sense that this would be true of a table that sold at a very high rate to tons of pool halls across America and around the world.

Gene
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I really don't know... I have done more GC's and Valleys than anything...

I was just relaying what I have been taught, by a well respected custom table buider/repairman
 
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