Bwick Arcade Project

Dartman

Dartman

Well-known member
Silver Member
This table was sold at a local auction in Nov 08. The final 2 bidders were the current owner and myself.
I bailed at $2400. After the auction the lady stated that the table was going to be hers regardless of price. :eek:
She asked if I'd be willing to do the setup after the wood was refinished so I told her to call me.

The table wood was in good shape except that the previous owners dog thought that the table legs
were dog treats. The refinishing folks did a nice job.

I buzzed Glen to see if he'd be interested in collaborating on the setup but
he won't be in the neighborhood any time soon.

Plans call for new cushions and cloth.
The pockets are original and in good shape but will probably go to Hood for fresh leather, fringe and boots.
I'll post some more pics as the job progresses.

Some more pics here -
http://www.poolfelt.com/arcade_project.html

arcade2.jpg
 
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The lady has good taste!
Keep the pictures coming, I love old Brunswicks, especially the Arcades, Klings, Pfister, St. Bernard, Reno..........lol
Yep. I'mmm jealous!
 
Rick, Is that a 5x10? or a 6 leg 4.5x9?.... I service the twin to your beauty but its a carom 5x10. Gorgeous table.. Keep posting the pictures of your progress.

Jay
 
A-1 billiards said:
Rick, Is that a 5x10? or a 6 leg 4.5x9?.... I service the twin to your beauty but its a carom 5x10. Gorgeous table.. Keep posting the pictures of your progress.

Jay
Click to expand...
6 Leg
There's a link in the OP to some other pics.
 
and the fun begins

Starting on the rails. Gotta love tacks.
219-01.jpg


I don't know but it seemed like the cloth was glued to the cushions,
or the dry rot just made the cloth and cushions stick together.
Double faced ends. Took about 10 minutes to dig out the featherstrip.
219-02.jpg


Cushions are not supposed to look like this. Can't tell what they are
but they are not triangle shaped and they had a vinyl backing on
the back surface.
219-03.jpg


Cushion removed after much work. This sucker was nasty and I'm sure
the other 5 rails will be the same. The profile is similar to P37 and here
I'm stuck because I've not seen cushions like this before.
219-04.jpg


Cleaned up the rail. Theres a shelf for the bottom of the cushion
to rest on. I don't recall this on other old Bwicks I've worked on in
the past. As you can see the shelf is 3/8". Thought U23 would work
looking at the subrail height but U23 doesn't have a flat bottom
219-06.jpg


Rail cleaned up pretty well after some scraping and light sanding
to remove all the goo that was there.
219-07.jpg


This pic at Glens request.
219-08.jpg


The dilemna here is what cushion to use.
I do not want to trim off the shelf as the owner wants everything maintained as original.
Help! LOL :D
 
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Shelf has got to go

The dilemna here is what cushion to use.
I do not want to trim off the shelf as the owner wants everything maintained as original.
Help! LOL :D[/QUOTE]

Rick,

Your problem here is two fold, first the angle of the rail liner looks much to vertical to accept any modern style of cushion. K-55 would require a bevel angle of approximately 20 degrees +or- 2 degrees. The pictures seem to show an angle of about half of that. (as read on the bevel of your table saw) Therefore to accommodate triangular cushions the shelf would have to go. The second problem is the height from the shelf to the top of the rail liner is to short to accommodate a modern cushion without sitting well above the top of the rail liner. As much as the customer wants to keep the table original this step is mandatory to facilitate proper play of the table.

You might point out to her that the ball return tracks have been replaced and the pocket work, cloth, and balls are all updated products quite different from the "original" equipment supplied with the table.

I would stick to a K-55 profile, It's the most similar to the Monarch cushion that Brunswick used in this era of pool table production. It's possible that the original cushions were replaced by a "fitter" or other table manufacturer with "their" special cushions of the day. According to the Brunswick catalog the ORIGINAL Arcade came with Monarch cushions, which these definitely are NOT.

Back in the day when after market company's were re-fitting cushions they would often replace the liners as well, which would explain your dilemma...;)

hope this helps a bit...:)
Jay
 
I checked the subrail vertical angle and it looks to be about 7 degrees.
Also noticed the top of the subrail is angled down a few degrees.
You can see that in the previous pic with the ruler sitting on the shelf.

Took another look at the bottom shelf and found it to be glued and nailed on.
Removed it in one piece and now there is a flat subrail height of 1 5/8"
See pic

220-01.jpg
 
No i havent but i was thinking about century rubber that was on cheap home tables. real tall and thin about 5-7 deg angle only one carrying it is mueller sporting goods. I even checked at brunswick when i first ran across this before.

But i think A-1 got it right possibly table was rerubbered and rewooded to fit what they had in stock for rubber. Some people will pay a premium for good monarch rubber to fit a 9 footer so you know some techs would tweak one table to gaet the rubber to sell to another person and charge both parties a premiumn for the service that was actualy a theft.

Take it slow your doing good sofar without butchering anything sofar.

Craig
 
Run them through the table saw.

Dartman said:
Anyone hear of an S23 Cushion ?
Click to expand...

Rick,

Run them through the table saw and the joiner to reestablish the correct bevel. Then apply your K-55 and you'll be as close to original as possible.

Jay kling-antique-pool-table-cushion-rails_edited.jpg
 
As you can see in the ORIGINAL Brunswick cross section the face of the liner was set at a 20 degree angle (approximately). At some point someone removed the original cushions, cut the face to a 7 degree angle and then applied the filler strip. In the corrective process you'll be removing more than a 1/4 in. of material from the top of the rail liner relative to nil from the bottom. After you have your proper angle dry fit your cushion flush to the top of the liner and measure your nose height (1+7/16). At this point you may have to glue up flat wood strips on you liners to maintain the dimensions of the playing surface. (1/4-3/8 in normally)

After you have your rail liners "shimmed" you may notice the K-55 has a gap between the bottom of the cushion and the bottom of the rail...No problem. following the angle of the bottom side of the cushion set the tilt of your table saw blade to trim it so that the remaining gluing surface of the liner is the same width as your cushion.

You will now have re built the liners back to there original shape and dimensions and re rubbered the table with the proper cushion.

Sorry for the long windiness but this table deserves it.

Jay
 
You can also buy replacement liners and save a lot of milling operations. Unfortunately they won't be orginal...LOL

Good luck
Jay
 
A-1 billiards said:
Rick,
Run them through the table saw and the joiner to reestablish the correct bevel. Then apply your K-55 and you'll be as close to original as possible.
Jay View attachment 88628
Click to expand...
Thanks for your comments thus far which are all within the realm of possibilities.
There are a few other "fixes" I'm considering.
I asked about the S23 profile cushion because one of the cushions that wasn't as nuked out had that marking.

One thing to remember is these are T-Rails which complicates any cutting operations.
Unfortunately I don't have access to Norm Abrams workshop, LOL, otherwise probably a cakewalk.

To use K55 the top of the subrail has to be cut back 1/4" to maintain the correct playing area dimensions.
If I go this route I'm debating the angle and length of the cut in order to hit the correct nose height.

Per Brunswick, this table had Monarch Match Game cushions which I have no data on.
Assuming the cushions/subrails were modified it seems someone did a lot of work to install the current cushions
when you compare the pics below to the Brunswick pic you posted.

Just want to make sure we're exploring all the possibilities because if I need
to do any cutting it needs to be correct the first time.

Shelf on
shelf.jpg


Shelf removed
shelfoff.jpg


Brunswick Pic
jaypic.jpg
 
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Finding a set of cushions similar to what's on the table would obviously be the simple solution :D
 
I do have the Norm Abrams work shop and would be more than glad to cut and prep them for you. As you can see the liners are not orginal... The top is to wide, there is no back bevel on the bottom, and the tacking area is wider.

Have done many similar to this one in the past. More than glad to help out if needed.

Jay
 
A-1 billiards said:
Rick,
This may also have possibility's.
http://www.poolndarts.com/p-3774-Century-Rubber/.
Angles and dimensions look very close.
Jay
Click to expand...
Close but not long enough at 42"
Trust me, I've looked at probably every profile currently offered.
U118 is actually closest to a simple swap but the dimensions are a bit too
big and I don't want to be trimming rubber.

Thanks for the offer on the shopwork, btw. I can get it done in my shop but
may run them over to someone local I know with some fancier equipment.
 
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