Hello, this is Kerry Rhodes. As many of you already know, I have sold and retired from Ridgebackrails. Already, I have been approached regarding making more of the Slatemaster cloth stretchers (a side project of mine which time seldom allowed). I am not ruling this out but I'm not ready to jump back into work just yet. I have a lot of life catching up to do. As I have aged (68 now) and gone through some pretty scary health issues (still kicking thanks largely to Mayo Clinic Phoenix), the value of time has become increasingly more important to me. One special example of this is the fact that my mother, just months away from being 90, is still painting, playing music, and enjoying her view of the Pacific Ocean from Newport Oregon. I spend as much time with her as possible. So why am I posting all of this in the "Talk To A Mechanic" forum?
Because my entire involvement in the world of billiards, from being an avid, although not all that great, league player, to being a respected table technician (A Better Billiards Service), to having created and grown Ridgebackrails into a respectable rail company, was most likely a result of my father showing up with a coin-operated, well used, slate-top bumper pool table when I was about seven years old. That table served my younger brother and I well as our pretend fort (with a blanket draped over it), a racetrack for our Matchbox cars (boy I'd sure like to have some of those originals back), a chalkboard (laying on our backs underneath it) and yes, it even introduced us to cue sports. I think the game of bumper pool never gained the merit it deserved. For me it is a fantastic strategy game, with defensive play as interesting and complicated as the game of one pocket. Needless to say, I love the game.
A short time ago, I came across a vintage Valley bumper table, serial number 29964 (made the first half of 1963). It is more accurate to say, I saved this table from going to the dump and it is admittedly in terrible, but restorable, condition. (There is a much longer story about this particular table which I might go into at another time.) The table is complete and original with the exceptions that is is missing the cushion rails (Hmmm), the box that the coin shoot mounts into along with the ball release mechanisms, and the coin shoot itself. From searches done here on AZB, I see that a previous member "SlateMate" had an identical table to this one, his being serial number 30810. And apparently, his had the coin-op mechanism still intact due to his references to the 20 cent, double dime coin shoot. I will attach a few pictures of the table I have after I figure out how to size them correctly for this forum. In the meantime, it is identical to the pictures of the table in posts by "SlateMate."
It seems that "Slatemate" is no longer welcome on this forum. So, my question becomes, does anybody out there have one of these tables with an intact coin/coin-shoot box and mechanism they would be willing to photograph and spec out so that I could reproduce one for this table? I want to make the table as original as possible and I'm confident it would be relatively easy to make if I could just see how it originally worked and what it looked like. In keeping with the the originality goal, I would also like to find a double-dime coin-shoot. Regrettably, I probably threw away at least a few of these in my early days. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for listening, Kerry
Because my entire involvement in the world of billiards, from being an avid, although not all that great, league player, to being a respected table technician (A Better Billiards Service), to having created and grown Ridgebackrails into a respectable rail company, was most likely a result of my father showing up with a coin-operated, well used, slate-top bumper pool table when I was about seven years old. That table served my younger brother and I well as our pretend fort (with a blanket draped over it), a racetrack for our Matchbox cars (boy I'd sure like to have some of those originals back), a chalkboard (laying on our backs underneath it) and yes, it even introduced us to cue sports. I think the game of bumper pool never gained the merit it deserved. For me it is a fantastic strategy game, with defensive play as interesting and complicated as the game of one pocket. Needless to say, I love the game.
A short time ago, I came across a vintage Valley bumper table, serial number 29964 (made the first half of 1963). It is more accurate to say, I saved this table from going to the dump and it is admittedly in terrible, but restorable, condition. (There is a much longer story about this particular table which I might go into at another time.) The table is complete and original with the exceptions that is is missing the cushion rails (Hmmm), the box that the coin shoot mounts into along with the ball release mechanisms, and the coin shoot itself. From searches done here on AZB, I see that a previous member "SlateMate" had an identical table to this one, his being serial number 30810. And apparently, his had the coin-op mechanism still intact due to his references to the 20 cent, double dime coin shoot. I will attach a few pictures of the table I have after I figure out how to size them correctly for this forum. In the meantime, it is identical to the pictures of the table in posts by "SlateMate."
It seems that "Slatemate" is no longer welcome on this forum. So, my question becomes, does anybody out there have one of these tables with an intact coin/coin-shoot box and mechanism they would be willing to photograph and spec out so that I could reproduce one for this table? I want to make the table as original as possible and I'm confident it would be relatively easy to make if I could just see how it originally worked and what it looked like. In keeping with the the originality goal, I would also like to find a double-dime coin-shoot. Regrettably, I probably threw away at least a few of these in my early days. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for listening, Kerry
