Connelley table reviews.
- Thread starter Big C
- Start date
Nice home tables, pretty similiar to Olhausen. But not in the same league as Gold Crown's and Diamond.
Here is Steve Leistikow beginning the work of making my Connelly Ultimate (Chiricahua model) playable. This is the table I bought back in October/November 2007 from a guy that, at one time, had 7 of them that he had taken out of a pool hall in Glendale, AZ.
2" pegged slate, 5 rail bolts, 4" framework in the bed, massive legs. I can't imagine a more solid table, regardless of manufacturer. Here it is after slate leveling and bondo'ing.
This was also the table for which I ordered new rails from Connelly. Which brings us to the Connelly 'problem'. Connelly has chosen to set their cushion nose-height at ~1-5/16", on a 1-1/2" rail. On the Ultimate, they use Championship Tour Edition K-55 rubber. Their rationale for this is that it makes for a livelier, quieter rail, with less cloth wear at the rail track. Here's a couple of shots of Steve's cushion work (these rails have a 1/4" neoprene facing - from Diamond - the stock rails have a pocket opening of slightly more than 5", and we wanted to tighten that up a bit without extending the subrails.)
The problem with their rails is that they are going to play differently than you might expect. I have a friend that plays in our league who overheard me talking about my table, and chimed in that he also had a Connelly, and that their rails "suck". He demonstrated why he felt that way, and his conclusions seemed reasonable, i.e. the lower rail height changes the way english behaves off the rail.
In our case, we mitigated that problem somewhat by adding a 1/8" shim to the bottom of the rails before we attached them to the table. This brings the cushion height to just less than the optimum height.
I will preempt Glen and say that, yes raising the rail in this way (essentially changing the rail thickness from 1-1/2" to 1-5/8") means that the cushion face angle on the subrail should be changed slightly, depending on the specifications of the rubber profile.
Two things about that: 1) Championship was unable to provide specifications for that face angle for their K-55 rubber, and 2) we weren't going to remove the rubber and re-engineer these brand new rails. So we opted for a compromise solution that we believe raises the rails enough to partially overcome the problem my friend pointed out without going so far as to completely change the cushion dynamics.
The results are good. We (my son and I) completely refinished the table, made new rail blinds to match the new rails, and it turned out beautifully and its play characteristics are really good with the exception of the pocket points, which are a little 'deader' than I would want, due to the 1/4" facing.
I will say that if I had known then what I know now, I would have fabricated my own rails, from scratch, so that I would have the proper rail height (63.5% of 2-1/4" => ~1-7/16") and desired pocket opening (4.5").
So, my recommendation is to find a good deal on an older, used Connelly Ultimate. You may have to replace the cushion rubber, but probably not. They used to use Artemis K-66 rubber on 1-3/4" rails on their Ultimates (prior to a couple of years ago). The rail height was correct, but, of course, the pocket openings were still 5", or so.
Good luck.
2" pegged slate, 5 rail bolts, 4" framework in the bed, massive legs. I can't imagine a more solid table, regardless of manufacturer. Here it is after slate leveling and bondo'ing.
This was also the table for which I ordered new rails from Connelly. Which brings us to the Connelly 'problem'. Connelly has chosen to set their cushion nose-height at ~1-5/16", on a 1-1/2" rail. On the Ultimate, they use Championship Tour Edition K-55 rubber. Their rationale for this is that it makes for a livelier, quieter rail, with less cloth wear at the rail track. Here's a couple of shots of Steve's cushion work (these rails have a 1/4" neoprene facing - from Diamond - the stock rails have a pocket opening of slightly more than 5", and we wanted to tighten that up a bit without extending the subrails.)
The problem with their rails is that they are going to play differently than you might expect. I have a friend that plays in our league who overheard me talking about my table, and chimed in that he also had a Connelly, and that their rails "suck". He demonstrated why he felt that way, and his conclusions seemed reasonable, i.e. the lower rail height changes the way english behaves off the rail.
In our case, we mitigated that problem somewhat by adding a 1/8" shim to the bottom of the rails before we attached them to the table. This brings the cushion height to just less than the optimum height.
I will preempt Glen and say that, yes raising the rail in this way (essentially changing the rail thickness from 1-1/2" to 1-5/8") means that the cushion face angle on the subrail should be changed slightly, depending on the specifications of the rubber profile.
Two things about that: 1) Championship was unable to provide specifications for that face angle for their K-55 rubber, and 2) we weren't going to remove the rubber and re-engineer these brand new rails. So we opted for a compromise solution that we believe raises the rails enough to partially overcome the problem my friend pointed out without going so far as to completely change the cushion dynamics.
The results are good. We (my son and I) completely refinished the table, made new rail blinds to match the new rails, and it turned out beautifully and its play characteristics are really good with the exception of the pocket points, which are a little 'deader' than I would want, due to the 1/4" facing.
I will say that if I had known then what I know now, I would have fabricated my own rails, from scratch, so that I would have the proper rail height (63.5% of 2-1/4" => ~1-7/16") and desired pocket opening (4.5").
So, my recommendation is to find a good deal on an older, used Connelly Ultimate. You may have to replace the cushion rubber, but probably not. They used to use Artemis K-66 rubber on 1-3/4" rails on their Ultimates (prior to a couple of years ago). The rail height was correct, but, of course, the pocket openings were still 5", or so.
Good luck.
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Good info.
Thanks for the feedback. I found a 9' Redington model for $700 in like new condition. I don't think I want to go through all that trouble to make it play right. I'll just keep looking until I find a Diamond in my are at the right price.
Thanks again.
Thanks for the feedback. I found a 9' Redington model for $700 in like new condition. I don't think I want to go through all that trouble to make it play right. I'll just keep looking until I find a Diamond in my are at the right price.
Thanks again.
This guy is selling Diamond tables in Texas, here's the forum link http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=90500
Sagittarius
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