Cloth 860 vs 920?
- Thread starter smoochie
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wow brutal 
I said if once I’ll say it again I wouldn’t let that mechanic work on my table. Hell I wouldn’t let him work on my worst enemies table.
This guys not a mechanic he’s a fool.
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Too late to not be a Dick. He brought to the forums first. That means it hit the eyes of a very very many.
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Maybe.. But he did not know that he have rails done wrong. And without that pic he would not know that now either...
Thats great, mine hardly reaches the 4th rail. I'll try again once I re-locked the nails with the torque wrench, but I doubt it'll make a difference, I am feeling dead rails either due to not-stretched cloth properly or old rails. Will keep you updated.
You most likely need new rail rubbers. I've never heard of badly stretched rail cloth slowing down a table significantly. If it did, it would have to look like absolute crap, flopping around loosely. You'd never accept a table looking like that. However, if the BED cloth is not stretched, that will steal speed like you won't believe, and maybe you wouldn't notice or know if you are unaware of how tight it's supposed to be. If you overtighten rail cloth, you can pull the cushion nose down, you'll get an inconsistent bounce and maybe jumping object balls. Again, this is fairly instantly obvious, at least its obvious that something is wrong. If you feel the nose of the cushion, walking around the table, you'll feel if it dips at any point or is bent down.
Torque wrenches are there to ensure that you do not OVERtighten the cushion bolts, and to make sure all the cushions are equally well bolted down. If the rail is allready tight down onto the table, using a torque wrench won't make the bounce significantly faster. You don't need a torque wrench to test this. Just use an ordinary socket wrench or whatever and gently feel if it's tight. So long as the cushion is fully in contact with the bed and can't move (which doesn't take a whole lot of force) I don't think it will significantly impact your speed test.
Again, the most common problem is people torquing down the bolts too hard, ruining the nut. THEN, after they've done that and the rail no longer can be secured properly, the bad bounce appears. There are cases of people forgetting to tighten or bolts coming lose but I rather doubt that is the case here. If so, you'll feel it instantly with the socket wrench. Often, you can hear a "hollow" sound when a ball hits a rail that is not on securely. Sometimes you don't.
Getting four rails on this test used to be the accepted minimum for table bounce. Tastes have changed, now people think a table is dead, even if it meets this requirement. I'm sure it's perfectly playable as is, but if you compete you may have to fork out some money to get similar rail speed as the venues.
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yeah. But that is simonis 950. that is really fast cloth. a lot faster than 860. 860 have best control. More precision. better for pool. Even i think 950 would be good on slower cushion pool tables though. These 11ft tables need fast cloth or they are not good to play. Brunswick table cushions are a lot slower than many other tables. But they play better than most. Diamonds have a lot faster cushions but they get funny when rail cloth get worn out more.
So don´t compare your table to others than another Brunswick tables with 860.
I can understand why you'd be confused at some of this info, people talking about using different rail cloth than bed cloth etc. Remember that this is often from people who compete at the highest level, and for different reasons than pure speed. I'll try to explain the technical details of it:
Wool cloth, of all kinds, tend to slide when it's brand new. If you watch a new cloth under a high power loupe, you'll see it's different than worn cloth. It's flatter, but it's the cloths structure that has been pressed flat and sometimes filled in with loose fuzz, though this is more true of nappy cloth. This is what causes the early sliding. Once the loose "fuzz" gets shorn off by wear and the proper structure raises up correctly, the extreme slide goes away. The more "fuzzy" or "nappy" the cloth, the longer it takes for the cloth to reach it's actual speed level. So a very thick, fuzzy nap cloth will still play slower than Simonis 760, but the speed will take longer to approach it's intended level. This is true, also of the cushions. Slidy rails will affect the rebound angle of bank shots (make the ball go "long") and make the pockets play easier.
Thicker cloths will take some time to break in on the rails. Simonis 760 is thinner and has less of this "rail slide" which is why, at one time, it was suggested to use it for the rails instead of 860, which was used for the bed. What I call rail slide is more a combination of the thickness acting as an extra cushion and the slidyness of the cloth itself. Simonis 760 is slidier, but thinner, but the net effect is less rail slide IN THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE CLOTHS LIFE. Keep in mind that this is for tournaments where everyone has to play on brand new cloths. For a home table all of this can be safely forgotten about and as far as I know, nobody has even talked about this since the 90's and early 2000s. It's a more common topic of conversation in snooker. Recently redone rails (with the nap and extra thickness of snooker cloth, and it being pure wool) tend to bounce less and bank long. AGAIN, for a home table, it can be safely forgotten about because the problem exist for a minute fraction of a cloths life, and the table will be perfectly playable, just play slightly differently for a short while. I would love to see if an amateur can even notice the difference between different pool cloths on the cushions? It's more for monsters like Earl to worry about, I'd say.
Theoretically, a thinner cloth will also cushion the ball less before it reaches actual rubber. I doubt that will be significant for speed test like the one suggested. It's more for the very soft hits, and only in the very beginning of the cloths life. After a week or two, you can forget about this whole thing, IMO.
Wool cloth, of all kinds, tend to slide when it's brand new. If you watch a new cloth under a high power loupe, you'll see it's different than worn cloth. It's flatter, but it's the cloths structure that has been pressed flat and sometimes filled in with loose fuzz, though this is more true of nappy cloth. This is what causes the early sliding. Once the loose "fuzz" gets shorn off by wear and the proper structure raises up correctly, the extreme slide goes away. The more "fuzzy" or "nappy" the cloth, the longer it takes for the cloth to reach it's actual speed level. So a very thick, fuzzy nap cloth will still play slower than Simonis 760, but the speed will take longer to approach it's intended level. This is true, also of the cushions. Slidy rails will affect the rebound angle of bank shots (make the ball go "long") and make the pockets play easier.
Thicker cloths will take some time to break in on the rails. Simonis 760 is thinner and has less of this "rail slide" which is why, at one time, it was suggested to use it for the rails instead of 860, which was used for the bed. What I call rail slide is more a combination of the thickness acting as an extra cushion and the slidyness of the cloth itself. Simonis 760 is slidier, but thinner, but the net effect is less rail slide IN THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE CLOTHS LIFE. Keep in mind that this is for tournaments where everyone has to play on brand new cloths. For a home table all of this can be safely forgotten about and as far as I know, nobody has even talked about this since the 90's and early 2000s. It's a more common topic of conversation in snooker. Recently redone rails (with the nap and extra thickness of snooker cloth, and it being pure wool) tend to bounce less and bank long. AGAIN, for a home table, it can be safely forgotten about because the problem exist for a minute fraction of a cloths life, and the table will be perfectly playable, just play slightly differently for a short while. I would love to see if an amateur can even notice the difference between different pool cloths on the cushions? It's more for monsters like Earl to worry about, I'd say.
Theoretically, a thinner cloth will also cushion the ball less before it reaches actual rubber. I doubt that will be significant for speed test like the one suggested. It's more for the very soft hits, and only in the very beginning of the cloths life. After a week or two, you can forget about this whole thing, IMO.
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The Verdict!
Upon working on the bolts/nuts I found out that the nuts weren't even tightened at all, they were pretty lose and I could open it with one finger. Then I used the instructed method by using the torque wrench as given buy the peeps in here & in the ask the table mechanic forums. All bolts tightened for the setting 19 Nm. The results were PHENOMENAN. I am really amazed at the difference on all the rails that I worked on.
Here's what I found too, there were two rails which were missing one dome washer & a nut, so basically just a threads coming down as I see them beneath the table but without a dome washer nor a nut. Which explains why these exact two rails felt deader than the rest actually. I was surprised to see these missing actually. As seen on the diagram are the locations of the missing dome washer and nuts, both happens in the middle of the rails. One can be seen clearly but the other one is hard because its underneath the BALLS basket (Whatever its called exactly not sure).
And these two rails actually feel more slow in the middle of them, and now I know the reason for this! So tomorrow I am going to go to a hardware store and try to find a match of this dome washer and the half inch nut. My question is are these made specifically for gold crown or can I find them in hardware stores anywhere? Cause if I wont find them, I may have to order two dome washers & two nuts online.
But I am hoping that I can find them locally in the nuts & bolts hardware store. You guys think these dome washers are specific or available?
Also is it hard to remove the balls basket to install this dome washer and nut underneath?
Upon working on the bolts/nuts I found out that the nuts weren't even tightened at all, they were pretty lose and I could open it with one finger. Then I used the instructed method by using the torque wrench as given buy the peeps in here & in the ask the table mechanic forums. All bolts tightened for the setting 19 Nm. The results were PHENOMENAN. I am really amazed at the difference on all the rails that I worked on.
Here's what I found too, there were two rails which were missing one dome washer & a nut, so basically just a threads coming down as I see them beneath the table but without a dome washer nor a nut. Which explains why these exact two rails felt deader than the rest actually. I was surprised to see these missing actually. As seen on the diagram are the locations of the missing dome washer and nuts, both happens in the middle of the rails. One can be seen clearly but the other one is hard because its underneath the BALLS basket (Whatever its called exactly not sure).
And these two rails actually feel more slow in the middle of them, and now I know the reason for this! So tomorrow I am going to go to a hardware store and try to find a match of this dome washer and the half inch nut. My question is are these made specifically for gold crown or can I find them in hardware stores anywhere? Cause if I wont find them, I may have to order two dome washers & two nuts online.
But I am hoping that I can find them locally in the nuts & bolts hardware store. You guys think these dome washers are specific or available?
Also is it hard to remove the balls basket to install this dome washer and nut underneath?
You should do the pool world a favor when you tell the guy that set it up you fixed it.
Please find a different type of job in a completely different industry, please and thank you.
