So What Does One Do When They Don't Have a Decent Local Mechanic...?
- Thread starter The_JV
- Start date
I love those rounded corner Diamonds!!
I have a customer that owns 3 homes, and has had me install a 9ft Professional in each one of them
If your going to use metal I would use aluminum. Stainless will hold a polish much better but it is many times more difficult to work with than nice, soft aluminum. That piece looks like it will probably require quite a bit of hand fitting which would take a lot, a lot of time and effort using stainless. The other nice thing about aluminum is that you can cut and work it with word working tools. I frequently use my circular saw to cut 1/4" and 3/8" thick 6061T6 aluminum plate then use my router for deburring and making holes etc. with carbide tipped wood working blades and bits.
I love customers like that. When they ask for a price they are not price shopping they just want to know how much money to bring.I have a customer that owns 3 homes, and has had me install a 9ft Professional in each one of them
He bought 2 at one time, first one went into his home in Seattle, second went into his condo in Portland OR. After delivering and setting both of them up, and being paid to do so, he still tipped me a $1,000. I just found out from Diamond that he ordered another one for his 3rd home on Oregon, so I'll be delivering that one shortly. This time when I deliver his table, I'm going to ask him if he owns s home in Hawaii too
I prefer them to the ever so slightly squared off corners. Unfortunately the red oak I had on hand to make the new caps wasn't large enough to copy that style. I guess I could mimic the full round over if I blended in the rail portions. Don't think that would good with the transitional seams between piece of wood though.
Funny you should suggest that... I picked up a piece of 6061 last night.
I fortunately have a decent assortment of tooling for my mill, so there isn't much I couldn't do with more traditional methods for metal work.
Thank you Glen. It was extremely educational...
You're welcome buddy, but it's time to go back to being an AHOLE again, "YOU'RE CUT OFF, DON'T EVER ASK ME ANYTHING AGAIN"Thank you Glen. It was extremely educational...
Lol.... right onYou're welcome buddy, but it's time to go back to being an AHOLE again, "YOU'RE CUT OFF, DON'T EVER ASK ME ANYTHING AGAIN"
So after seeing this post from Brad and a conversation with Glen, I've decided to go in this direction for fastening the new wooden corners to the rails. This was really one of those "well that's the obvious solution" moments for me. So much thought into something that can easily be resolved. My old plan with creating a bracket to hold everything together always suffered from not having a method to squeeze the assembly together tightly. Would it be 'together'..?..., sure. Would it actually lock up everything in a sturdy manner...?..., not so much.
So, I'm still moving forward with the metal bracket but it will be significantly more cosmetic rather than structural. The corners will be dowelled and bolted together. I could fab up the miter bolts, and may still need to depending on available size/delivery. However, this is subproject I'll probably dodge for sake of speed if possible.
Even though this approach will make things "easier". It's really not going to speed up the whole process much. In order of needs to happen.
- Fab up cosmetic brackets for sake of final fitting of caps
- Re-install corners with trim (formerly know as bracket). Caps will require more sanding to blend to rails
- Finish blending/sanding to final profile.
- Use final profile as a register for dowel drilling. (bottom of rail vs cap even)
- Reassemble with dowels and install miter bolts.
I have some time to think about this one, so hopefully I'll dream something up that will be easier.
I haven't had a ton of free time over the last short while, but I did manage to start the ball rolling on the corner trim. Since making the decision to fore go using them as a structural member, I've been able to reduce material usage and machining requirements.
To refresh, the idea was to have a piece of aluminum fill a gap left by the undersized material used for the corners. Because this piece needed to be fabricated. I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and also use it to hold everything together. With the later concept pitched into the bin. I could minimize the amount of material needed for the (now) trim. That said, I still intended to step the 0.5" material so the corner would have the full width but extend the extra 0.2" beyond the cap to tie it into the rest of the rails.
The only real trick was how to shape the aluminum to match the cap. My idea is to attach the cap to the aliminum plate and then machine/sand down to the same profile. This forced me into pulling another bandaid and removing the caps from the rails. If you can recall, I used a patternmaker's trick to adhere the wood blocks to the rails with tissue paper to spray glue. The holding force while belt sanding down the blocks to match the rail profile had me slightly concerned about knocking them out. However, it took only two minor taps with a nylon hammer to pop them out.
The tissue paper tore out nicely, and a very light sand cleaned it off easily.
Next step was to attach the caps to the aluminum plate. I decided to eyeball the caps on the plate and draw their outline. I used this to determine some holding screws that may end up being the final solution for holding on the trim. Time will tell....
The scored line running corner to corner will end up being a parting line so that block will produce two pieces of trim. Once the holes/counter sinks were drilled, the plate was flipped and the cap mounted.
Next up was to clear out the unwanted 0.3" of material on either side of the cap. Again, this section is meant to bridge over to the rails. Based on the rest of the design to align and hold the caps to the rails. I don't think I will be placing fasteners in these locations. I may boil down to whether or not they produce noise when shots hit the back of the pocket or not.
I neglicted to snap a pic this time around, but to set up the operation above all I did was sweep the face of the cap with a dial indicator while feeding that axis back and forth. Minor adjustments until the indicator didn't vary more than <.001". Once that's locked in, I tend to set a "holy shit" stop that prevents you from over feeding into the dimension that matters. Then I go to town hogging out the bulk of the waste. Finally, I remove the stops and creep up to the final dimension. Not chasing any value here. Just indexing a thou or 2 at a time until I brush the cap.
After I cleared out either side, I rinsed and repeated with another cap. I'm mid way through the second one now. I didn't part the plate in half yet. The extra material makes clamping things up way easier.
Once these operations are done, I'll trim off the bulk of the plate in front of the profile and then switch over to the disk sander.
Fine job, well done!!! Ain't it nice having all of those tools and equipment at home? On New Years Eve I went to make a couple of steaks on the grill for my wife and I. Since I was doing this in my heated shop (it was about 5 degrees F outside) I decided I would clean out the tray that catches the grease below the burners, I noticed it had a relatively small hole that I was going to patch but after touching it I had a huge hole. 20 minutes later I had a brand new tray bent up and ready to use.
Thanks, much appreciated... ...and yes it is nice to have machine tools kicking around. Spend a good amount of time gathering what I have. They don't get a ton of use but unfortunately but I enjoy every moment.
I've been plugging away when time allows. I need to offset my 'personal' projects with the honey do's, or things get bad...lol.
I ended up having to toss the first two brackets I made. Long story short... I didn't have the wooden caps squared up correctly and the aluminum 'legs' that extend into the rails were well below the surface. May have been able to salvage them but not really worth the effort. On the upside it gave me more of an opprotunity to snap some pics of the setup I used to match the wooden cap miters.
Short version... Set up a dial so that it's fixed to the head of the mill, and then sweep back and forth along the cutting axis until the reading matches end to end.
Looks like I'm off by a tenth or so of a thou. Close enough for this guy.... What this allows me to do is mill the shoulder's miter right up the wood. I hog out the bulk of the material and then creep up to the wood face. Near the end it's a thou or two at a time until I start brushing the wood face. Once I see some wood dust (think fine sand paper) I know I'm good.
So we fast forward a bunch of days and we end up with 4 brackets ready to be installed and eventually shaped.
Note the extra material along the edge of the rails. This is where I dropped the ball the last time around. Those sections were well below the rail face. I would have had to remove significant wood to flush them up. This time I erred heavily to the side of caution. It translates to extra time shaping the aluminum but it's better than back tracking to the beginning again.
Next task was to mount the bracket to the rails. I needed them installed so I could refit the wood caps. Step 1 was to mill out the unwanted material on the rails. The goal was to have the 0.200" 'legs' of the brackets sit flush with the bottom of the rails. This would also provide 0.400" of lift to the wood caps. Way more than I needed (0.3" max) but it wouldn't hurt and it would provide a more uniform look.
I used a 1/4" palm router with a run of the mill bit. It's small enough that I didn't need to remove the rails to perform the work. This made life a tad easier.
With the pockets in the rails milled out. I marked off the best spot to use screws and returned to the mill. Followed the same process that I did for the wood cap screws, and installed.
With the bracket installed, the wood caps needed to be refitted to the gap. The original fitting had the wood held in place with the matching miters. Now that the caps were going to be screwed to the bracket, their alignment was off. It took a bit of trial/error and I still need to re-address it somewhat.
So back to the belt sander I went. It of course made relatively short work of the wood cap, and for kicks I thought I'd try it out on the aluminum.
It did a decent enough job so I stuck with it. Had to take a break midway though. That aluminum really likes to hold on to it's heat...lol
Finally I got it down to nearly finished.
I have that tiny gap between the cap and bracket to deal with. Although I highly doubt it would be noticeable once the wood had it's dark stain. ...and the aluminum has some strong sanding marks that need to be knocked down.
All in all, it's what I was hoping for, and I'm glad I opted to knock it down to 0.400" rather than the full 0.5". It should really pop when the finish is all done. 3 more to go and then on to the side pockets...
Thanks for watching
I ended up having to toss the first two brackets I made. Long story short... I didn't have the wooden caps squared up correctly and the aluminum 'legs' that extend into the rails were well below the surface. May have been able to salvage them but not really worth the effort. On the upside it gave me more of an opprotunity to snap some pics of the setup I used to match the wooden cap miters.
Short version... Set up a dial so that it's fixed to the head of the mill, and then sweep back and forth along the cutting axis until the reading matches end to end.
Looks like I'm off by a tenth or so of a thou. Close enough for this guy.... What this allows me to do is mill the shoulder's miter right up the wood. I hog out the bulk of the material and then creep up to the wood face. Near the end it's a thou or two at a time until I start brushing the wood face. Once I see some wood dust (think fine sand paper) I know I'm good.
So we fast forward a bunch of days and we end up with 4 brackets ready to be installed and eventually shaped.
Note the extra material along the edge of the rails. This is where I dropped the ball the last time around. Those sections were well below the rail face. I would have had to remove significant wood to flush them up. This time I erred heavily to the side of caution. It translates to extra time shaping the aluminum but it's better than back tracking to the beginning again.
Next task was to mount the bracket to the rails. I needed them installed so I could refit the wood caps. Step 1 was to mill out the unwanted material on the rails. The goal was to have the 0.200" 'legs' of the brackets sit flush with the bottom of the rails. This would also provide 0.400" of lift to the wood caps. Way more than I needed (0.3" max) but it wouldn't hurt and it would provide a more uniform look.
I used a 1/4" palm router with a run of the mill bit. It's small enough that I didn't need to remove the rails to perform the work. This made life a tad easier.
With the pockets in the rails milled out. I marked off the best spot to use screws and returned to the mill. Followed the same process that I did for the wood cap screws, and installed.
With the bracket installed, the wood caps needed to be refitted to the gap. The original fitting had the wood held in place with the matching miters. Now that the caps were going to be screwed to the bracket, their alignment was off. It took a bit of trial/error and I still need to re-address it somewhat.
So back to the belt sander I went. It of course made relatively short work of the wood cap, and for kicks I thought I'd try it out on the aluminum.
It did a decent enough job so I stuck with it. Had to take a break midway though. That aluminum really likes to hold on to it's heat...lol
Finally I got it down to nearly finished.
I have that tiny gap between the cap and bracket to deal with. Although I highly doubt it would be noticeable once the wood had it's dark stain. ...and the aluminum has some strong sanding marks that need to be knocked down.
All in all, it's what I was hoping for, and I'm glad I opted to knock it down to 0.400" rather than the full 0.5". It should really pop when the finish is all done. 3 more to go and then on to the side pockets...
Thanks for watching
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Looks great, job well done!!! I always keep a bucket of water by my sanders to cool metal down when shaping/smoothing, it takes far too long to air cool, I would get nothing done.I've been plugging away when time allows. I need to offset my 'personal' projects with the honey do's, or things get bad...lol.
I ended up having to toss the first two brackets I made. Long story short... I didn't have the wooden caps squared up correctly and the aluminum 'legs' that extend into the rails were well below the surface. May have been able to salvage them but not really worth the effort. On the upside it gave me more of an opprotunity to snap some pics of the setup I used to match the wooden cap miters.
Short version... Set up a dial so that it's fixed to the head of the mill, and then sweep back and forth along the cutting axis until the reading matches end to end.
View attachment 628973
View attachment 628974View attachment 628975
Looks like I'm off by a tenth or so of a thou. Close enough for this guy.... What this allows me to do is mill the shoulder's miter right up the wood. I hog out the bulk of the material and then creep up to the wood face. Near the end it's a thou or two at a time until I start brushing the wood face. Once I see some wood dust (think fine sand paper) I know I'm good.
View attachment 629031
So we fast forward a bunch of days and we end up with 4 brackets ready to be installed and eventually shaped.
View attachment 628976
Note the extra material along the edge of the rails. This is where I dropped the ball the last time around. Those sections were well below the rail face. I would have had to remove significant wood to flush them up. This time I erred heavily to the side of caution. It translates to extra time shaping the aluminum but it's better than back tracking to the beginning again.
Next task was to mount the bracket to the rails. I needed them installed so I could refit the wood caps. Step 1 was to mill out the unwanted material on the rails. The goal was to have the 0.200" 'legs' of the brackets sit flush with the bottom of the rails. This would also provide 0.400" of lift to the wood caps. Way more than I needed (0.3" max) but it wouldn't hurt and it would provide a more uniform look.
View attachment 628978
I used a 1/4" palm router with a run of the mill bit. It's small enough that I didn't need to remove the rails to perform the work. This made life a tad easier.
With the pockets in the rails milled out. I marked off the best spot to use screws and returned to the mill. Followed the same process that I did for the wood cap screws, and installed.
View attachment 628979
With the bracket installed, the wood caps needed to be refitted to the gap. The original fitting had the wood held in place with the matching miters. Now that the caps were going to be screwed to the bracket, their alignment was off. It took a bit of trial/error and I still need to re-address it somewhat.
View attachment 628980
So back to the belt sander I went. It of course made relatively short work of the wood cap, and for kicks I thought I'd try it out on the aluminum.
View attachment 628981
It did a decent enough job so I stuck with it. Had to take a break midway though. That aluminum really likes to hold on to it's heat...lol
Finally I got it down to nearly finished.
View attachment 628983
I have that tiny gap between the cap and bracket to deal with. Although I highly doubt it would be noticeable once the wood had it's dark stain. ...and the aluminum has some strong sanding marks that need to be knocked down.
All in all, it's what I was hoping for, and I'm glad I opted to knock it down to 0.400" rather than the full 0.5". It should really pop when the finish is all done. 3 more to go and then on to the side pockets...
Thanks for watching
Thanks, it's been more work then I'd hoped. Fortunately I like burning time on tasks that no one cares about other than me
That said, I'm ripping through the corners fairly quick now. I'm growing a little tired of not having my table, so I may hold off on the dowelling and miter bolts until I tear it back down in a year or so for a move to a new location.
Yep, it took a long time for the chunk of aluminum to even get touchable. Not much of an option other than to let it air cool though. Didn't want to risk getting the wood wet.
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There really hasn't been much worth updating this thread with. The other 3 corners are tricked out with their new aluminum trim, but it was just more the same. The side pockets are a work in progress, and are at a state that require fitting to the rails. For the most part my schedule hasn't allowed for any real work to be attempted. That said, I needed a visual milestone to rejuvenate my motovation. So last night I decided to attempt fitting a corner pocket insert.
Early on I decided to replace the original pocket inserts. The old ones were entirely plastic but had that square hole pattern along the sides that really only served as a means to tear you finger nails off.
I knew I was going to 'rework' the pocket locations so I thought I may as well give it my best shot at removing my single most pet peeve regarding pool table pockets.
Yep..., that overlapping plastic. I understand that just making an insert that slaps in the hole and sits proud of the rail is the easiest solution, but man I find it really annoying when you're forced to bridge around that plastic.
Anyways. I didn't automatically know I was going with additional wood in the corners, and was leaving the possibility open to cast something similar to the Black/Gold crown hardware. What I did know, was that the end result would be flush so I figured the best purchase was replacement inserts for a table designed with that style of pocket. Canadabilliard .com sells nearly every part related to their tables so I ordered pocket inserts for their 'black crown 2' table at a cost of around $150 I think. Biggest bonus going this route was the lack of square finger nail death traps.
All that needed to happen was for me to mill out the rail material to accept the new inserts. It has been this step that has prevented me from installing the pocket facings. I simply didn't know if the facing material was going to make my life harder or not, so I thought I'd hold off.
First trick was to lay out my rail shoulder that the pocket would sit on, and router it to a depth equal to the insert lip. I will assume this shoulder is casted into the typical metal corner hardware.
Forgive the quality of the pics. I had to screen capture off some video.
At any rate. That recess allows the pocket to sit appropriately for shape and alignment to the back of the feather strips. The insert itself will need to be trimmed but for now it's good.
The next and far more lengthy process was to remove the extra material from the original rails and my corner block.
The insert has a healthy slope out the back end which I would have to imagine is a design element to direct shots down into the pocket. Regardless it was a bunch of work to generate the adequate allowance to get the insert to fit somewhat cleanly. Additional material was removed to clear space for the insert's mounting bosses as well.
In the end I have decent fit so far. The edge on the top of the rail needs to be cleaned up as it was just roughly shaped with a palm router.
...and finally, for comparison's sake:
Looks good. Are you making adequate clearance for the mounting bosses and installing threaded inserts to fasten the pocket liners?