Table designed only for practice

[hang-the-9]

There are really only two things stopping people from owning a table. I guess 3 if you count spouse/lover/etc... saying NO :smile:

Cost and Space.

Has anyone ever made a small table used only for practice that is just a half or a corner of a regular table? Take a 9 foot table, basically cut it in four, you have a pocket and some rails to practice shots and banks on.

Maybe a silly idea but solves both issues. While it's not a full practice, you can use small controlled shots and even do drills on it. Many drills only involve one pocket anyway. Or take a 7' table, slice it in half the long way and you can even practice longer shots in a tiny space.

One could use scrap tables that normally would be trashed say if half a table got attacked by a rhino charging though the pool hall. Now you can just slice it in half, and use the good part as a practice table.

 

[JB Cases]

There are really only two things stopping people from owning a table. I guess 3 if you count spouse/lover/etc... saying NO :smile:

Cost and Space.

Has anyone ever made a small table used only for practice that is just a half or a corner of a regular table? Take a 9 foot table, basically cut it in four, you have a pocket and some rails to practice shots and banks on.

Maybe a silly idea but solves both issues. While it's not a full practice, you can use small controlled shots and even do drills on it. Many drills only involve one pocket anyway. Or take a 7' table, slice it in half the long way and you can even practice longer shots in a tiny space.

One could use scrap tables that normally would be trashed say if half a table got attacked by a rhino charging though the pool hall. Now you can just slice it in half, and use the good part as a practice table.

Believe it or not I have tried for the past four years to get several pool table companies interested in making something like this. So far no takers. I drew up the dimensions and all, not hard because it's essentially a quarter of a 9ft table. I tried to explain the potential market for it, no takers. The only way to get this done is to either make it yourself or to bankroll the production of hundreds of units.

I also have an idea for a coffee table sized table that is a minature pool table with real rails, pockets, balls and cues. Basically a real pool table shrunk to scale to coffee table size. So that the playing physics would work perfectly just like on a big table. In theory at least.

 

[Black-Balled]

Or you could stack books on the corners of a table to make pockets . That would be a lot cheaper, require 0 space and would be just as effective.

 

[JB Cases]

PS, the idea for the practice table came from CueAddicts demo table. At the shows they have something like an 8ft table with one pocket on it so that people can try cues. I thought it would be great to make this for general sale.

 

[BasementDweller]

I've sort of thought about this too.

I've always thought I would rather cram a 9' table into the corner of a room just for practice, instead of putting in a bar table. I'm probably just fooling myself though because I'm sure I would get bored with the practice if I was NEVER able to play on it.

How about taking an old table and only use the entire length of the side rail, but only go in about 20 inches into the table, then you take that and mount it to the wall. You then can practice your long straight in shots but you've only used up a small portion of the room. Then when this "practice table" wasn't in use you would just use it as an interesting shelf to store all of your pool stuff.

 

[Cdryden]

I also have an idea for a coffee table sized table that is a minature pool table with real rails, pockets, balls and cues. Basically a real pool table shrunk to scale to coffee table size. So that the playing physics would work perfectly just like on a big table. In theory at least.

Neat idea, I think you would want to increase the weight of the balls to get the physics right though. (if you are in fact using relative sized pool balls) In order to mimic the action of the balls I think they would have to be heavier to maintain the friction ratio. (unless of course you plan to miniaturize the fiber and weave of the cloth to match!)

I am starting to see why this hasn't been done correctly before!

 

[Renegade_56]

I've sort of thought about this too.

I've always thought I would rather cram a 9' table into the corner of a room just for practice, instead of putting in a bar table. I'm probably just fooling myself though because I'm sure I would get bored with the practice if I was NEVER able to play on it.

This is an idea I've thought about alot. A 9 footer with ball return pushed into a corner would be a great place to practice in my opinion. I primarily play Snooker and One Pocket, and with this I could practice most any shot, long and short rail banks, etc. I don't have a room large enough to utilize a 9 foorter, but I do have a spare bedroom that I could do this with. I actually own a 10 foot Snooker table without ball return, and it's in storage taken apart.

I think JB is correct, you really have to just bankroll a project and own it to get the manufacturers involved. I have developed a great new game that has a taste of snooker, rotation, alot of strategy, easily recognizable, simple rules, easy to handicap,,,,,,,it would be a great game for league play, much like APA, but with more focus on strategy and advanced play,
but it needs a special 6 ball set with unique colors and numbers, and so far I've been unsuccessful in getting any interest in manufacturing the ball sets by the big players. I only need like a dozen sets for promotional purposes,,,,,,if I asked for 1000 sets they may be interested.

 

[hang-the-9]

This is an idea I've thought about alot. A 9 footer with ball return pushed into a corner would be a great place to practice in my opinion. I primarily play Snooker and One Pocket, and with this I could practice most any shot, long and short rail banks, etc. I don't have a room large enough to utilize a 9 foorter, but I do have a spare bedroom that I could do this with. I actually own a 10 foot Snooker table without ball return, and it's in storage taken apart.

I think JB is correct, you really have to just bankroll a project and own it to get the manufacturers involved. I have developed a great new game that has a taste of snooker, rotation, alot of strategy, easily recognizable, simple rules, easy to handicap,,,,,,,it would be a great game for league play, much like APA, but with more focus on strategy and advanced play,
but it needs a special 6 ball set with unique colors and numbers, and so far I've been unsuccessful in getting any interest in manufacturing the ball sets by the big players. I only need like a dozen sets for promotional purposes,,,,,,if I asked for 1000 sets they may be interested.

I was not even thinking a full table, half or 1/4 of one. A full table costs more, or would if they made half tables, and it takes up as much room, just not in the middle.

A 3x6 table with maybe 2 pockets would be great to stick in a lot of areas.

 

[Bob Jewett]

This is an idea I've thought about alot. A 9 footer with ball return pushed into a corner would be a great place to practice in my opinion. I primarily play Snooker and One Pocket, and with this I could practice most any shot, long and short rail banks, etc. ...

I have a friend who did this with a 10' carom table, so the doesn't have the ball return issue. He can practice any shot, but I think there are a few where he can only go clockwise (or counterclockwise) on the shot. Obviously for carom you want all 4 cushions so a cut-down table won't work very well.

 

[iusedtoberich]

I did this last year. I bought 3 rails with cushions from a member here. I had old simonis a room owner gave me when he recovered his tables. My intent was just to practice straight in shots, just to stay in stroke.

To me, it was almost a waste. I couldn't really do anything but straight in shots. The table was too narrow for much anything else. Its just too far removed from the real thing.

I will dig up some pics later.

In contrast, I just got a place big enough for a full table, and I'm practicing on it every single day.

 

[spatlese44]

I've been thinking about this for quite some time now. I have a large appartment, but none of the rooms are big enough for even a 7' table. I could do a long narrow table, but figure that I would eventually get bored with practicing bank shots night after night and ultimately would be disappointed. I could also rent a two car garage in the neighborhood and heat it with a space heater.

Not that I've built anything, but if I were, I was thinking of adding some different geometry to make it possible to play a game. I was thinking of an L shape and or possibly an obstruction like in bumper pool, but with real pockets. Maybe a 45 degree angle at the end of the L for some interesting bank shots ala minature golf. Probably only have one or two pockets.

 

[macguy]

There are really only two things stopping people from owning a table. I guess 3 if you count spouse/lover/etc... saying NO :smile:

Cost and Space.

Has anyone ever made a small table used only for practice that is just a half or a corner of a regular table? Take a 9 foot table, basically cut it in four, you have a pocket and some rails to practice shots and banks on.

Maybe a silly idea but solves both issues. While it's not a full practice, you can use small controlled shots and even do drills on it. Many drills only involve one pocket anyway. Or take a 7' table, slice it in half the long way and you can even practice longer shots in a tiny space. I have plenty of room around my table but if I didn't I would not let it stop me from having my own table, I would not care if it was shoved into a corner it will still be of huge value in improving your game.



One could use scrap tables that normally would be trashed say if half a table got attacked by a rhino charging though the pool hall. Now you can just slice it in half, and use the good part as a practice table.

I don't know if this counts, but I have known more then a few who put tables in rooms that were not large enough. I had a tenant who had a table that the one end was only far enough from the wall to walk past it but the other three sides were fine. You could play on three sides and do most anything you wanted to do in the way of practice.

Especially if you get a really good buy on a nice table. Some time in the future you will most likely have a proper place for it but in the mean time it is much better then nothing. Kind of hard to justify paying $8 or $10 an hour to be at the pool room practicing drills you can just as well do at home when the urge moves you.