are these cushions dead?

[strmanglr scott]

The banks back and forth, and around the table are used to test the overall flow of the table, cloth, cushions, rail bolt tightness.....the heartbeat of the table for lack of other words.

I get that. No funky sounds or anything like that on the table, but check them anyway huh?

I thought you might be saying that because the table could be damaged somehow.

Is there a general torque spec on rails? I'm gonna have cushions recovered and thought about using the torque wrench when I removed them to get a general idea.

 

[3kushn]

Several things I'm seeing in your videos.

Rail nose is a little too high BUT you should still get better rebound than you're getting. Possible someone switched old rails for your newer ones. The rail rebound looks a little stiff, this is usual of cheaper tables. You can test with your fingers by squeezing the rail nose. It should sink in and feel rubbery. Hard rail rubber = poor rebound.

Slamming the ball onto the 1st rail will raise the nose and the ball will be momentarily "trapped" which slows down the ball dramatically. As you notice the 2nd & 3rd rail bounce is nearing normal.

Your photo of underside, your rails are made of pressed sawdust, of rather POOR quality I must say.
I've worked in cabinet shops, what you have is NOT solid by ANY means. We use it primarily as filler. That is another piece of the puzzle where you're getting poor rebound, it's not solid like oak or maple.

The noise is USUALLY from loose rails BUT you say they're tight. OK, so now you'll have to raise the rails to see if the cloth was stapled correctly (as others said, cloth relief). 1 or 2 layers of cloth raising the rail will act as a shock absorber.

SPEAKING OF CLOTH... if that blue is your cloth, I hope you didn't pay much for it. It "pills" pretty bad.
PM me, I have suggestion how to improve that cloth as it sits.

Take photos of your work. Before reassembling, we can give more advice.

BTW: I had a near new SEARS $50 table and REworked it so it performed reasonably well. Definitely better than your videos show.
.

I can't help myself when someone describes tightening things up. I'm not a table mechanic, just a torque nerd.

I don't care what quality of chip board, solid wood, or anything used that's compressible, That Joint is going to relax, resulting in a loss of clamp load. In other words if you used a torque wrench to tighten these bolts, then came back several hours or days later, those bolts will very likely move before your wrench clicks. Even if everything is solid machined steel parts and precision hardware, in time Clamp Load will drop. It just takes higher precision tools to measure it.

Point is, agreed, higher quality board will help. It won't significantly eliminate the problem you speak of.

Life of table? I'd Guess so.

 

[3kushn]

No, height gages don't take into consideration the thickness differences from different table manufactures, which change the nose height as per cushions installed. K55 and K66 cushions play completely different from each other if both are mounted on rails with the same thickness and the same nose height.

Interesting. Would you want to disclose why?
Not arguing rebound speeds of the 2 profiles.

Are you talking the vertical thickness (height) of the rails? If so, I get it. If not, I don't.

 

[strmanglr scott]

4 and 7 rails, got a little hop on the first rail when going for 7.

Not bad for an inexpensive table.

Cloth is pretty fuzzy on the table now, about to put Gorino GT2000 in a beautiful electric blue color on.

I know that stuff is way faster than what's on it now. In fact I find it just a hair faster than Simonis. I have a 7ft and the guy at Mueller's told me, 'we don't usually recommend that fast of cloth for a 7ftr'.

I like it much better because it has a better hand, aka nap. That feel translates to the hit. Simonis just plays thin and wears thiner and gets more holes from my experience. 4 years on each, with each being worn out in a year and replaced each year.

 

[realkingcobra]

Interesting. Would you want to disclose why?
Not arguing rebound speeds of the 2 profiles.

Are you talking the vertical thickness (height) of the rails? If so, I get it. If not, I don't.

Yes, a 1-11/16" thick sub rail won't play the same if using the K66 or the K55 with the exact same nose height. Even setting the sub rail bevel to set both nose heights at exactly 1 7/16"....because the triangle of the cushions are different, the body of the cushion is not behind the nose height with the K66 like it is with the K55 cushions, therefore they play differently.