Strange middle pocket measurements and help needed

[iusedtoberich]

It's a cheap, non-commercial table for "fun". You end up with bad designs like this. A lot of the cheap "internet" tables on Amazon in the USA have bad designs as well.

Since you are a beginner, just enjoy it as much as you can. If a ball hits the plastic cap around the nail, simply consider it pocketed and move on.

My guess is the builder added the cap to solve a prior problem he was having. The nail head might have been too small and causing the pockets to rip. I've seen that myself on some junk tables. The second problem it might be solving is having a recess for the nail head so the balls don't contact it, which would immediately chip every single ball. We've all seen that in this forum on cheap tables ruining ball sets in a matter of minutes.

A company has to be building tables for a LONG time to really figure out all of these problems, and also have extremely experienced players find faults with the tables so they can improve. A one man shop designing and building the table, will simply never uncover all of these problems.

The other alternative is for a new company to copy a very successful commercial table from the start, but copy it 100%.

 

[Bob Jewett]

... It is a private table for fun evenings though. I‘m not aiming at getting semi professional on it anyway.
....

OK, it's not really critical to your life, but....

Suppose someone made a dining room table for you where the legs on one end were a couple of centimeters shorter than the legs on the other end. It is easy enough for you to put books under the one end or cut the legs down on the other end. How would you deal with that problem? I would let the maker know that something was wrong and I would ask them to fix it. Or give me my money back.

 

[fastone371]

It‘s actually a small company, and he makes pool and carom tables in various designs. Hence I didn‘t think further about it before buying one. As I understood it, he builds them and has a carpenter company who makes all the woodworking for him…

It is a private table for fun evenings though. I‘m not aiming at getting semi professional on it anyway.

Maybe I am wrong about this, but the slate should be a standard size/product anyway. All it needs to fix it, would be to fix my sides and rails, which are attached to the main frame and bedding of the slate anyway. So it should be possible to just switch the sides and improve it.

Im not trying to knock your new table but those are the strangest looking pocket openings I have ever seen. Before you think about fixing anything other than the nails in the pockets I would strongly suggest disassembling the table so you can see how it is built, with good pictures there are plenty of knowledgeable people here that can answer any questions you may have. You may find out that there is so much to fix on the table to turn into a decent playing table that its not worth it. You just want to make sure that you are not spending good money after bad money. I think what typically happens with most people is they are happy with their tables until they improve and play on good tables, its at that point that you find the shortcomings of your table and it bothers you until you fix it or upgrade to a better table. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who think a pool table is nothing more than a wood cabinet with some slate and 6 pockets. There is a lot more than that to building a proper playing and lasting pool table. Good luck!!!