Top 10 Hack Attacks

Dartman

Dartman

Well-known member
Silver Member
Just had to vent after redoing a set of rails today. Feel free to post your favorite peevs.

Cutting cushions ends crooked and winding up with crooked facings. A note to hacks - putting staples thru the facing and into the cushion rubber does not hold - they make this stuff called glue for that which assures the integrity of the cushion ends. If you can't cut rubber find another profession. :rolleyes:

Staples need to seat straight into the subrail. Using the wrong size staples then beating them down with a hammer only crushes the staple legs. Then when you go to pull them seems 1 leg always breaks off making extraction by needlenose necessary - and adding to my time dealing with your screwup. :mad:

And a note to RKC - try to keep it to 1 page, lol :D
 
well, one of my favorites usually occurs by a homeowner. I have seen this
at least a dozen times.

They do not wrap the cloth around the featherstrip. I walk in and can see
all six featherstrips!

As far as hacks go, had a pool room a couple of months ago that the previous hack used 9/16 for bed and rails and also glued it! Nice hardwood too. Staples were breking off trying to get them out! In the corners
he had staples crisscrossed over top of each other! about 1.5 hours just
to strip bed and rails!!!!

p.s I am still trying to locate him!!! lol
 
I have no idea what you're talking about:rolleyes:
 

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How many times have you guys gone to strip a set of rails to recover and the last guys left all the staples from THEIR recover for you? The worst I ever encountered was 5... yes FIVE FULL sets of staples still in the rails. Let me clarify...this table had been recovered FIVE times before I got there and no-one had pulled staple # 1. I'd say after the second one it got to be a joke for those guys. I wasn't laughing.
 
Had to include this one as well...show up at a house to move a National. I get into it and I'm noticing something's not quite right with this frame. The bottom of the frame stuck out and made it tough to get to the rail bolts... Then the slate screws really didn't hit the frame... WOW...this guy had put the frame on upside-down. The topliner was on the bottom. It was tough explaining to the guy why I was laughing so hard at his table, since he had already made it clear how proud he was that he had set it up himself. ;)
 
Club Billiards said:
How many times have you guys gone to strip a set of rails to recover and the last guys left all the staples from THEIR recover for you? The worst I ever encountered was 5... yes FIVE FULL sets of staples still in the rails. Let me clarify...this table had been recovered FIVE times before I got there and no-one had pulled staple # 1. I'd say after the second one it got to be a joke for those guys. I wasn't laughing.
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I did a local room about two years ago with 7 - 7' Valleys & 3 - 8' Valley's. The knuckleheads that did it 4 times prior to me never pulled staples and the owner of the joint enjoyed pulling staples with me the first day. It took me 4 days to do that job and should have only taken 2. (Consider I work alone) Just pulling the staples took over 1 hour per table and my hands rec'd a bigtime workout!! If I EVER meet that guy I think I'd shove a hand full of knuckles down his throat. The next time they were recovered the owner bought all new sets of rails.....one recover too late for me!!

Robin
 
TheTablePro said:
If I EVER meet that guy I think I'd shove a hand full of knuckles down his throat.
Robin
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Might be more fun to shove that bucket full of staples down his throat. Is that too violent? ;)
 
awww

realkingcobra said:
I have no idea what you're talking about:rolleyes:
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LMFAO you act like that is a lot of staples. Poor Glen. There are a couple of installers for a retailer here that use the little wire staples and put them end to end on a rail. I'm guessing sixty to eighty per rail. When they recover a table they don't pull any of the old staples. A55holes. My biggest peeve is when we come in to move or cover a table and EVERYTHING in the basement is on top of the pool table.
 
Club Billiards said:
How many times have you guys gone to strip a set of rails to recover and the last guys left all the staples from THEIR recover for you? The worst I ever encountered was 5... yes FIVE FULL sets of staples still in the rails. Let me clarify...this table had been recovered FIVE times before I got there and no-one had pulled staple # 1. I'd say after the second one it got to be a joke for those guys. I wasn't laughing.
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It's a damn shame we can't just shoot them.
 
SlateHumper said:
My biggest peeve is when we come in to move or cover a table and EVERYTHING in the basement is on top of the pool table.
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At which point I say - once you clear off the stuff I can get started.
Been there, done that.
 
realkingcobra said:
I have no idea what you're talking about:rolleyes:
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The way I see it - theres room for at least 10 more staples to criss-cross and make it look cool :D

edge.jpg
 
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Dartman said:
Let's not forget all the stripped screwheads we find.
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And on a related note, the guys that took the extra time and effort to plaster/bondo in EVERY hole in the slate, including the ones well under the rails, just to make sure the next guy that moves the table has to chisel out and replace ALL of the slate screws. Thanks for going that extra unneccessary mile, guys! ;)
 
1. wire or giant 9\16+ long staples.

2. packing tape slate seams.

3. super glued feather strips or 10+ nails or 21 piece feather strip

4. rail rubber stapled on not glued on

5. ran out\ striped out rail bolts replaced with sheet rock screws

6. no shims under slate but all 4 legs have shims under them......

7. steel putty to fill in screw holes and it matches the slate in color

8. sprayed glued the whole top of the slate for the bed cloth....

9. 5-10 inch wide spread of plaster of paris for slate seams

10. ball counter rail is at the head end


We might have to change this thread to the top 25 things or the best 100 things we have encountered in this journey of working on pool tables.

Reminds me of Forrest Gump's saying.
---- Its like a box of chocolates you never know whats inside ------------


Craig
 
Lots of paraffin wax...

Another homeowner install gone bad.

I was asked to setup an old Gotham table by one of my pool teammates who had set it up the last time and broke it down to install a rug in his cellar. He told me that the cue ball jumped on breaks and wanted someone who "knew what he was doing" to set it up this time.

The table had a pressboard frame but was pretty solid due to the large dimensions of the frame members. The slate was a full 1" unframed with the bed cloth attached by stapling to a wood strip that runs around the edge.

I found the reason for the jumping cue ball was a ramp of paraffin wax between two slates whose surfaces were 1/8" apart! It took about 1/2 hour to remove a 2" width of candle wax used to transition between those slates. No wonder the cue ball jumped! There was also some of those previously mentioned sheet rock screws hold the slates down as well as some pretty interesting ball return components made from 4" PVC pipe.

Oddly enough the table played pretty good when I was done. My buddy subsequently sold it and I got to install it again!
 
Wow! Your number 7 I don't think that can be beat. Never heard of that one, I would track that guy down. Are you talking JB weld type putty? I probably would have left.
 
There is a local guy who makes his folds for the side pocket on the rail side instead on the pocket side. It doesn't make it much fun when you have to run a ball down the past that pocket and it kicks off the fold!

Another local guy can't cover rails without having folds at EVERY pocket. Thats right side pockets and corners!

I'm not going to say I do everything best but I do it RIGHT!

Dave
 
I was refered to a pool hall here in Sacramento Ca. and he pays to kids to recover tables in Simonis and they fold the corners also bed & rails all loose.

I told him I can fix the loose cloth on the bed, rails and reglue or replace the rubber also. I shot him a low price and he countered it @ $50 a table since he already payed the other guys to do it wrong. now he is geting ready to sell his business.

Craig
 
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