?'s Rails too high and then...squaring rails

The Bourbonator

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I've been building a pool table. I found this place while setting out to answer a few questions about it. Thanks for your help on that and all of the time that you have spent putting answers on here to questions you probably find mundane and trivial. It's helped me a bunch.

I think for the most part, the work I have done on it is satisfactory from a woodworkers standpoint, but I'm certainly no table mech. I started when my buddy's table got wet in a flood. I needed a table so I figured I would just recycle his slate and build my own table around it. I got it real cheap. Later I found some rails that a friend had that he had ordered and they showed up in the wrong color stain. The factory sent replacements and after he pointed out the other minor flaws in the wood and finish, they decided they didn't want them back. I got them real cheap, too.

I had the table covered last night and banged some balls around and the rails were giving kind of a thud and the balls were coming off at a bigger angle than is normal. Just by judging where they contact the ball, I can tell they are too high, I'd say by probably 1/16-3/32". I don't know what style you would call them, they accept #6 irons, if that tells you anything and they were made by Kasson, or whoever makes kasson. The rubber and facings were on them when I got them and were attached quite securely. I had to re-drill the anchors on the undersides, but I think that is irrelevant. The anchors are all got properly countersunk.

I wasn't watching when the guy put them on there, it's possible the felt is just improperly trimmed on them or maybe bunched up just enough to make them higher. I think the right thing to do is take them off and check them out. I'm sure theres a cheat. It would suck to come this far and then cheat, but just in case, what's the cheat? Shim up the back of the rails? I'm pretty sure I want to avoid that. I hope its just the felt. I sure don't want to take off any wood.

If and when I take them off, I'd like to make sure I get them back on right. Can you give me a rough procedure to follow to put them back on square and true. I couldn't find that info in the archives. It seems like it could be a bear if I just set out by trial and error.

Thanks again for all your help.
 
when you put the rails back on: get all the rail bolts in, center the side rails (or side pocket) with the side pocket cut-out in the slate, center the end rails to the corner pocket cut-outs, tighten the end rails, align you side rails (from the corner pocket look down the rail nose to align) then tighten and double-check to make sure your side rails are aligned.
 
The first thing I would check is to make sure that when the rail cloth was affixed to the bottom of the rail, it all fit into the recess where you put the staples, and that excess cloth was trimmed. If care was not taken to do this, the table side of the rail will not sit flush with the playing surface.

There could also be an issue if the t-nuts are located towards the outside of the rail rather than centered, as when tightened, this could tend to pull down on the outer rail, and lift the inner rail a bit.

When I built my table, I cut a section of 2" PVC pipe to exactly 39" (my table width). I could then use this to make sure the distance between side rails was true along the length of the table. Just roll it down the table and make sure it doesn't get stuck or develop gaps with the cushions. I also used it to make sure the side rails were true across the side pockets, although anything straight can be used for this.

In positioning the rails, I followed this procedure:
1) Measure slate and make a scale diagram
2) Pick a corner pocket edge of the slate, and give the slate coordinates here (0,0)
3) Figure out where the rail edges need to be relative to the slate edges. Example: a typical 7' slate is 46" wide. Since the play surface needs to be 39", the cushion noses will need to be 3.5" in from the slate edge
4) For the example above, the first corner pocket cushion noses will have coords (a, 3.5), and (3.5,a). Knowing that you want the points of the cushions 4.5" apart (my choice), you can use the formula for distance between two points to determine "a".
5) position the rails so that the cushion points are distance "a" from one rail, and 3.5" from the other (remember, the 3.5" is an example).
6) Square using the pvc tool and a large right angle square.
7) Tighten rails

Hope this helps
 
Oops-

Some of the above procedure for positioning the rails was based on designing rail length.

Since your rails are finished, things are easier because the dimensions of your pockets are already set.

You just need to determine how far in from the slate edges the cushion nose shoud be to get the proper sized playing surface. Position the end rails with cushion noses at this distance, then center the end rails so that the points of the cushions are the same distance from the slate edges. The side rails can then be positioned with the same offsets.
 
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