How do you tell if your table cloth has not been pulled tightly enough?

Interesting, I just entered the following in Google:

What size cloth do i need for a 7 foot diamond table?

Below is what was returned:

For 7 foot Diamond barboxes – you may need to upgrade to 8' rails and therefore purchase the 8 foot cloth size. For an 8 foot oversized table, we recommend to size up to the 9 foot precut size to cover your table.
 
newcuer said:
... When the installer installed the cloth he mentioned that the cloth I provided him was too short for the 7 foot diamond I have.... Any thoughts on this?
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I think there are several different sizes of "7-foot pool tables" but you should ask in the table mechanics forum.
 
newcuer said:
Interesting, I just entered the following in Google:

What size cloth do i need for a 7 foot diamond table?

Below is what was returned:

For 7 foot Diamond barboxes – you may need to upgrade to 8' rails and therefore purchase the 8 foot cloth size. For an 8 foot oversized table, we recommend to size up to the 9 foot precut size to cover your table.
Click to expand...
This is simply not true. 7' Diamond slates are only 2" longer than Valley slate. It's nice to have that extra couple of inches when cutting the cloth, but not absolutely necessary.
Even if the cloth is cut for a Valley, the rail cloths are not going to be an issue either.
There are some smaller Valley tables out there, but they're quite rare, I don't think I've ever seen one.

 
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Here are a few things to ask an installer.
What kind of glue do you use? Should be an industrial contact cement put on with a roller. No spray glue.
How do you index the cloth? Lines should be drawn around the perimeter of the cloth, and stretched to those lines.
It's possible to do a good job without the lines, but even a very skilled installer will benefit from doing this. A lesser skilled one NEEDS lines.
What kind of level(s) do you use? Only good answer here is a machinist's level.
 
Bob Jewett said:
You can do a pool "stimp meter" but you have to agree to a standard slope and height. My method only requires that we agree to what a second of time is and how to measure inches if the lag isn't quite the right length. And it works on very fast and very slow cloth. Most people have a stop watch app in their phones.
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The thing I don't like about testing with a human, is that it's a human LOL
Varying hit speeds. I think as long as there is a "good" table to measure against in any given pool hall using a ramp, one can find out if any other table is slow or fast in relation, as well as cushion rebound. While not really technical, I am sure most of us, and other players, can tell by our gut feel if a table speed is on or off. I have done this ad-hoc with two pool cue shafts on the edge of the table, just made sure they extend to the table the same amount.
 
hang-the-9 said:
The thing I don't like about testing with a human, is that it's a human LOL
Varying hit speeds. I think as long as there is a "good" table to measure against in any given pool hall using a ramp, one can find out if any other table is slow or fast in relation, as well as cushion rebound. While not really technical, I am sure most of us, and other players, can tell by our gut feel if a table speed is on or off. I have done this ad-hoc with two pool cue shafts on the edge of the table, just made sure they extend to the table the same amount.
Click to expand...
Sure, I can tell pretty quickly how fast the cloth and cushions are. Knowing the expected speeds is a large part of playing position. That's all feeling.

The point of my method is to put an actual number on the speed of the cloth.

Note that the rebound of the cushion doesn't enter into measuring cloth speed because you have to adjust your lag speed to go (close to) one table length. Measuring cushion rebound is a separate problem.

My method also allows you to measure the speed of a table's cloth from a video that has a shot like a lag. Just time from cushion to stop. You can get that down to a frame of the video.
 
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