GC III Skirts
- Thread starter rexus31
- Start date
I stained my GCII that was originally painted white. I was trying to match the rails as close as possible, I ended up mixing different colors of the same manufacturer to get the best match. The rails appear to have a red tint to them but when I tried stains that had red they were too red and the non red tinted stains were too brown. I just sanded the back of one of the skirts and kept experimenting until I had a good match, stain is cheap. Going to a quality hardware or paint store should help get him in the ball park.
The only original color of side skirts on a GC2 was the painted Rosewood stained finish as a GC2 was not offered in any other color. The metal ball tray was also a bronze color, not a polished chrome finish, leg levelers were also of the bronze finish.
Yeah I must have a late GCI, it does not have the figure 8 rail hold downs which everyone says are only on the GCI's, it does have segmented extruded aluminum rail hangers which I was told made it a 2, adjustable feet which I dont think means anything for the timeline, it was white and has chrome trim, not bronze/brass. It also has Brunstone, had Monarch Superspeeds (not sure when they went to a current profile from Brunswick) The original owner bought the table brand new from a local Brunswick dealer in 1971/1972 then had it installed in his home but who knows how long it sat in inventory. He also bought one of those floor standing double sided Brunswick cue racks that matches the table when he bought the package. Its one of those George Jetson looking things. (got a Willie Hoppe Titlist with it too!)
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GC2 production years..........74'-76'
RKC, I remember you clarifying the GCII features a while ago. The table re-design also commuted the full length plastic skirting to a corner only winglet configuration. You also mentioned late build GCIs were somewhat of a running design change, ie: figure 8 vs floating nut plates for the rails, full vs segmented apron extrusions, leveling feet, extrusion hung ball box, etc. It seems the most fundamental difference is if the table aprons are painted in any of the original GC colors, the table is a GCI.
Well this certainly explains it.
GCI= All have painted skirts?
GCII =was stained skirts and bronze trim?
GCIII =all had stain and bronze, it that coreect?
GCIV= has corner castings with Gold Crown or Brunswick cast on the top?
GCV= Best looking Gold Crown yet flush mount corner castings and 45 degree angle on casting/rail joint and redesigned ball box??
If all of the above is true what is the difference between GCII and GCIII? Brunstone to slate?
Despite what some may think, slate was offered on the earlier model Gold Crowns. We currently have 4 Gold Crown I's in the shop, all with slate. We also have one Gold Crown I, with what has come to be referred to as Brunstone (though, the patent dates for brunstone, and all of the available sales literature, have me curious if we may be misrepresenting the name).
There are several differences between the II and III.
-The frames are different
-The III skirts bolt to the rails, instead of the interlocking extrusions
-The III castings are lighter and weaker
-The III rails have threaded wood inserts, instead of the figure 8 plate or the floating nut
-III's had bronze trim and castings, II's did not
-The III no longer used the plastic skirting
First off, post pictures of the real GC1 slate, including the pocket shelf and backing. What's different between the 1 - 3 frames? Further more' NO GC3 came out with threaded rail bolt inserts, they either had a stamped out, cheap floating nut plate inserted into a cavity, or it came with the thicker floating nut plate. The 2's did have bronzed colored leg levelers and ball tray trim, but the pocket castings were the polished aluminum, as well as the rail trim, same as the late 1s came with.
The 3s had longer rail skirts which covered the exposure of the drop pockets as well as the ball return. The floating nut plates were mounted width wise, whereas on the later 1s and 2s they were mounted lengthwise into the rails. The first GC3 rails came out with the GC1 bent T-bracket, then a bent L-bracket, then with the cheap threaded insert mounted into the end of the rails for bolting up the pocket castings. The first GC3s came with pin & dowel brunstone, and then later switched to pin & dowel slate, then later dropped the pin & dowel completely. If Brunswick actually had real slate to offer in the GC1s, they would have been using it on the later Anniversary tables, which also came with Brunstone....because Brunswick didn't have any real slate to offer any more as they had shut down their slate mining operation due to their involvement with the WW11 work effort.
Glen, while I have great respect for you, I do not agree with your thoughts on the availability of slate, from the 40's-70's. I do not need to look at a pocket cut-out to know the difference between slate and this shit that we refer to as 'Brunstone'. There is a definite difference. The easiest way to tell the difference, without even looking at either one, is to scrape a razor blade across the surface.. Slate will scrape easily. The 'Brunstone' will simply dull the blade. But, there is also a definite difference in appearance between the two.
As far as slate availability on Anniversaries goes, I don't have much of a comment. I have not seen many Anniversary tables in my area. However, out of the 3 that I have worked on, 2 of them had slate. One of them had a nasty vein that ran the full length of the table, across all 3 slates.
Stain? Why is it that everyone thinks the skirts on a GC were stained....as in STAINING goes, they were PAINTED with a Rosewood spray paint stain, the finish is all in the paint/stain....sprayed on, not applied with a brush, rag, sponge or anything else. So, there is no stain to match the process Brunswick used to stain the skirts.....unless it's been mixed with a finish coat and stain, and spray coated on the rail blinds.
Slate has grinding marks form the grinding process, brunstone has none.
If they had real slate, then it's because the brunstone was replaced sometime in the past.
Try contacting Ken Hash at Classic Billiards.
http://www.classicbilliards.net
I bought some things from him to refinish my GC 1 and he had the original color charts for my table from Brunswick, pretty cool stuff. I think if anyone has the info you seek he would be the guy.
Thank you!
Stain, even with the previous use of a wood sealers still penetrates the wood surface and soaks into the wood exposing the laminates of maple or poplar used to make the rail blinds which is why what Brunswick did to finish the rail blinds can't be reproduced unless the same method of painting on the stain finish can be performed again. In order to do that you need to look at the Minwax' Polyshades stain, which has the sealer finish mixed in with the stain such as the Rosewood finish stain. As its sprayed on the skirts, it lays on like paint....on the surface of the wood, instead of soaking in, then with each coat applied, it builds up making the finish thicker, therefore hiding the laminated wood look.
It looked like my rail blinds were cut out of solid Maple, am I incorrect in assuming so? I know I had tough time getting the stain to soak into the Maple because it is hard , I think I sanded at 220 grit first then ended up at 120 grit to get the stain to soak in. You really need to be careful with the ball box because it is Poplar (I think) and the stain soaks in very quickly, if you are not careful the ball box will end up much darker than the rail blinds. I think the outsides of the legs, the radius-ed part, is Poplar and the center is Maple plywood?
Best thing to do is practice on the insides or other inconspicuous place to become familiar with techniques you will need to use to get stain to desired shade. After staining I coated everything in satin Polyurethane.
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