Valley table
- Thread starter stlerdave
- Start date
I'm not a mechanic but it sounds like your asking, "Can a rail make a ball pick up speed?"
IMO, what you are seeing is angular velocity transfering to linear velocity when a spinning ball touches the rail.
Try this. Hit cueball as hard as you can and let it bounce off rails. If the cueball never stops then it is gaining speed off the rails.
I know exactly what your trying to ask. There are a few tables in my area that give the illusion of the rails adding speed to the ball. Not sure what your cloth condition is but I have found that the cloth is usually pretty worn out on the tables around here that give this illusion. Maybe a correlation?
What you are experiencing can be caused by very lively rails that are positioned so that the point is lower than usual (closer to the playing surface. This sometimes causes the ball to jump just slightly as it rebounds giving the appearence that the ball comes off the rail faster than in goes in.
Now that's funny! :grin:
Or some can be positioned so that they put some top spin on the ball coming off the rail so it does come out faster than expected. I've also seen other tables that play pretty much "normal" but the owner was so used to playing on dead Valley rails that good rails seemed to play too fast.
When I put a set of Ridgebacks on a 7-foot Valley a very few shooters complained that the rails were "too lively" on that table. Wait until my next recover on the other 11 7-foot Valleys.
Only if there was no such thing as friction. I think the rail could provide speed in compression and spring back - it would be the friction of the felt that slows the ball. I don't personally believe you gain speed though.
If you look at your table, the two marks on the felt nearest the pockets below the rack on the felt are caused by friction/heat. Pretty tough to pick up speed but they very much could be springier than what other valleys provide.