Brunswick sold to Escalade

kling&allen said:
But to be clear, all Brunswick (Life Fitness) tables sold the last decade + were just Chinese tables with a nameplate. It's been a long time since Brunswick made or designed anything itself in this market.
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Yes absolutely correct. I think some came from Vietnam (same thing) and to be sure they sold for a premium above the “off brand” tables out of the same factory/mill.

My biz partner wouldn’t listen to me the last 2 Bwick tables he bought. Both 9’ home tables with a little bit of carving on the skirts and legs-nothing ornate. 10k & 12k the 12k was about 8 years later when he moved. They were both trash. $1250 is what they were worth. Call it $2k with cues, installed. Both times he got $40 plastic balls and a plastic rack. Both times I called the vendor (2 different places) and got him proper balls and triangles (first table I got him better cues) imagine getting robbed for 10k on a box and getting $40 plastic balls-the ones that show dents.

They need to clean that mess up. Those tables are so bad
 
garczar said:
B'wick designed it with help from design students.
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Yeah I was around for all that. Those students were the equivalent of industrial designers. Their design was a rough aesthetic concept. After that, it goes to mechanical engineers who turn that concept into an actual product. You can see the final table has a lot of differences, that the engineering team made to that rough concept. So does BW have engineers on staff that did this? Or did they use the Chinese engineers at Rasoon or whoever makes their tables?
 
D36FD37D-36C1-4AA7-AB1A-32817049D025.jpeg

pocket casting on brand new GC6
 
iusedtoberich said:
Yeah I was around for all that. Those students were the equivalent of industrial designers. Their design was a rough aesthetic concept. After that, it goes to mechanical engineers who turn that concept into an actual product. You can see the final table has a lot of differences, that the engineering team made to that rough concept. So does BW have engineers on staff that did this? Or did they use the Chinese engineers at Rasoon or whoever makes their tables?
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I think B'wick has designers on staff. They also use a dsign outfit in Chicago. Last few yrs they have been made by Yalin in China. Both the 5 and the 6 i've seen were very nice tables. 6 patent: https://www.brunswickbilliards.com/media/gc-vi-patent.pdf
 
iusedtoberich said:
Yeah I was around for all that. Those students were the equivalent of industrial designers. Their design was a rough aesthetic concept. After that, it goes to mechanical engineers who turn that concept into an actual product. You can see the final table has a lot of differences, that the engineering team made to that rough concept. So does BW have engineers on staff that did this? Or did they use the Chinese engineers at Rasoon or whoever makes their tables?
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I had thought that Brunswick used a Chinese ODM to design and manufacture their tables. Last I looked (when they were divested to Life Fitness), they only had a handful of sales and marketing employees.
 
kling&allen said:
I had thought that Brunswick used a Chinese ODM to design and manufacture their tables. Last I looked (when they were divested to Life Fitness), they only had a handful of sales and marketing employees.
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Read that GC6 patent. No Chinese guys on there. AFAIK Yalin just builds them and ships to Bristol for assembly and shipping. B'wick still does design both in-house and with outside help.Beyonddesign in Chicago helped on the 5.
 
iusedtoberich said:
Some things never change! ha ha. Gotta give credit to Diamond for fixing all that crap.
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They had this problem on the 5’s as well. When they introduced it at the BCA trade show in Vegas (I was there the day Michael Jackson died) when ever that was-the 5 was up on a pedestal with ropes around it so this problem wasn’t visible. They knew they had a problem but still wanted to show the new box.

That casting is super sharp, the other 3 were flush and fit properly.

This is where Bwick needs to step up before launching a table.

I’d bet on them doing well, before I’d bet against them. But success isn’t a lock. They are a favorite. Diamond will continue just fine. There’s room for both imo.
 
Ok, so if BW has designers and/or engineers on staff, people can't say they don't design anything anymore. Companies can be both OEM and ODM. So in this case for example (OEM), they might design and engineer the GC line, with their own employees and/or consulting companies hired by them and work together. Then they give that design to the manufacturing partner (Yalin, mexico, etc), and the table is built. ODM would be they go to Yalin, shop Yalin's tables, and say "we like this table and will put the BW logo on it. Both are viable business models. Both models are used by companies around the world. As long as BW has OEM products, they are still designing tables, and its wrong to say they haven't in 10 or 15 or 20 years.
 
Fatboy said:
They had this problem on the 5’s as well. When they introduced it at the BCA trade show in Vegas (I was there the day Michael Jackson died) when ever that was-the 5 was up on a pedestal with ropes around it so this problem wasn’t visible. They knew they had a problem but still wanted to show the new box.

That casting is super sharp, the other 3 were flush and fit properly.

This is where Bwick needs to step up before launching a table.

I’d bet on them doing well, before I’d bet against them. But success isn’t a lock. They are a favorite. Diamond will continue just fine. There’s room for both imo.
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The 4's have it too. Mine is a 4 and is like that (not as bad but still wrong). Probably the 1-3 have it too, but its been years since I've seen one so I forgot.
 
iusedtoberich said:
Ok, so if BW has designers on staff, people can't say they don't design anything anymore. Companies can be both OEM and ODM. So in this case for example (OEM), they might design and engineer the GC line, with their own employees and/or consulting companies hired by them and work together. Then they give that design to the manufacturing partner (Yalin, mexico, etc), and the table is built. ODM would be they go to Yalin, shop Yalin's tables, and say "we like this table and will put the BW logo on it. Both are viable business models. Both models are used by companies around the world. As long as BW has OEM products, they are still designing tables, and its wrong to say they haven't in 10 or 15 or 20 years.
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I never said designed, just 'built'. When the GC3 came out is when they started farming out sub-components and became an 'assembler'. They would use just enough US-sourced parts(usually pocket trim, pockets, gulleys) so they could legally put 'Made in USA' on them.
 
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iusedtoberich said:
The 4's have it too. Mine is a 4 and is like that (not as bad but still wrong). Probably the 1-3 have it too, but its been years since I've seen one so I forgot.
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I have a 4 as well. Was Artie’s table (for me that’s cool) and it happens to be the best 4 I’ve ever owned(I owned a ton when Jay and I were flipping tables). Glen did a little frame work on it. I put a 5 up in its place once in Vegas-took it down after 9-10 months. Never stayed level. Imo a good 4 is the best GC. Of course a tangerine 1 would be pretty cool too😍😍🥰
 
garczar said:
Read that GC6 patent. No Chinese guys on there. AFAIK Yalin just builds them and ships to Bristol for assembly and shipping. B'wick still does design both in-house and with outside help.Beyonddesign in Chicago helped on the 5.
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That patent is just a design patent that you get by submitting a rough sketch to the patent office. There's no technical requirement for a design patent other than the sketch. It's one thing to make a sketch to hand to a factory in China, and another to do the tooling, layout, and actual engineering design of a product. But that being said it's neat that Brunswick at least tried to work with local designers, like this guy who's named on the patent: https://detroitisit.com/chit-chat-colin-tury/
 
iusedtoberich said:
Ok, so if BW has designers and/or engineers on staff, people can't say they don't design anything anymore. Companies can be both OEM and ODM. So in this case for example (OEM), they might design and engineer the GC line, with their own employees and/or consulting companies hired by them and work together. Then they give that design to the manufacturing partner (Yalin, mexico, etc), and the table is built. ODM would be they go to Yalin, shop Yalin's tables, and say "we like this table and will put the BW logo on it. Both are viable business models. Both models are used by companies around the world. As long as BW has OEM products, they are still designing tables, and its wrong to say they haven't in 10 or 15 or 20 years.
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My understanding from everything I've seen is that it's the ODM approach, with Brunswick suggesting ornamental features. No different than a Chinese electronics ODM making me a yellow watch with green sprinkles that looks like a turd. That design suggestion doesn't make me an embedded systems engineer.
 
kling&allen said:
My understanding from everything I've seen is that it's the ODM approach, with Brunswick suggesting ornamental features. No different than a Chinese electronics ODM making me a yellow watch with green sprinkles that looks like a turd. That design suggestion doesn't make me an embedded systems engineer.
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There's not much difference in the guts of a 4-5-6. Mostly trim differences. One thing they did do is they put the frame end sills back 'between' the rails like on the 1-2. Not stuck on the end like 3-4's. The 6's don't have the slate leveling system like the 4-5 iirc.
 
iusedtoberich said:
The 4's have it too. Mine is a 4 and is like that (not as bad but still wrong). Probably the 1-3 have it too, but its been years since I've seen one so I forgot.
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I'm not a mechanical design engineer, but I'm guessing that you can only get that big an error if the design was by a goof-ball know-nothing. Shouldn't the design keep that much error from occurring? I'm thinking it should be impossible for a good design to screw together and turn out like that. No?
 
Bob Jewett said:
I'm not a mechanical design engineer, but I'm guessing that you can only get that big an error if the design was by a goof-ball know-nothing. Shouldn't the design keep that much error from occurring? I'm thinking it should be impossible for a good design to screw together and turn out like that. No?
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I'm no engineer or a table tech. but i've seen GC's put together with zero gaps in the trim-work. I think a lot is on the installer.
 
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