Break Building Development

[Danger Steve]

Hmm no pic... this is really frustrating trying to upload!

[Danger Steve]

[Danger Steve]

I’d say mine are a fraction tighter?? More of the ball is showing on the playing area of the table...

[itsnoteasy]

wheyhey can see all the pics now. I would say the corner pockets are pretty close to the ones I play on. As Steve says his might be a tad tighter by an eighth or so.

[mikee]

Weird now pics are showing ,it’s very frustrating on here at the moment ,anyway You’re pockets do look a bit more nippy than mine Steve and I see what you mean ,there is a bit more slate bed showing going in to the pocket below the balls .My corners are a couple of mill over sized ,the slate is still standard match cut though .Whats you’re table like for Potts with pace down the cushions ,will it take them clean .I seem to remember you cut your own pockets ,was that easy getting them all the same and playing well ,that’s a serious job to do ,but it looks good mate .

[mikee]

Weird now pics are showing ,it’s very frustrating on here at the moment ,anyway You’re pockets do look a bit more nippy than mine Steve and I see what you mean ,there is a bit more slate bed showing going in to the pocket below the balls .My corners are a couple of mill over sized ,the slate is still standard match cut though .Whats you’re table like for Potts with pace down the cushions ,will it take them clean .I seem to remember you cut your own pockets ,was that easy getting them all the same and playing well ,that’s a serious job to do ,but it looks good mate .

[Danger Steve]

To be honest cutting the rubber down was the one job I feared.. but it turned out to be one of the easier jobs on the whole refurb! No offence to table fitters around the world but I do think they big up their job slightly! I think the real difference between a pro fitter and myself is speed, I don’t know how they manage to say re-rubber and completely recloth a table in one day??... I don’t own a cobblers knife so at first tried with a Stanley knife and a new blade to cut the curve into the rubber but the knife just bounced off the stuff! After scratching my head for half an hour I thought I bet a junior hacksaw with a fine metal blade would slice it up, and sure enough it does! And with less danger of removing your fingers! Once you have the shape roughed out it’s down to wood files and plenty of elbow grease! The beauty is that because it’s so tough, you can’t really take too much off in one go, it’s virtually impossible... so that means it’s very easy to make whatever shape you like!

For me the most difficult job by far was clothing the cushions! I was so unhappy with my first effort that I actually bought some more cloth and tried again! Fortunately 2nd time around I got them perfect! The problem was where the cloth has to bend around and tuck down the back of the last piece of rubber, that cut back in the wood cushion... we’ll you can end up with the cloth gathering in a little lump at the top and it looks very unsightly! It’s incredibly awkward to get that right and also at the same time get the wrinkles out from underneath.. everything had to be stretched just so! And once you’ve cut the excess off it’s too late if you’ve got it wrong! You can’t just start again... it’s another piece of cloth. Fortunately steel cushions don’t have that little flap of rubber so I would imagine their much simpler to cloth in that respect!

[vmax]

I'd say these are easier pockets due to the cut from the fall to the back of the pocket being parallel. If the cut is curved or rounded past the fall then the pocket narrows a tad from the fall before opening up fully at the back of the pocket and this makes pots along the cushion more difficult.

[Danger Steve]

Could be right, there’s not much in it... correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure the jaw of the pocket is supposed to be at it’s narrowest point at the fall? After that the pocket should open up a fraction into the back of the pocket to accept the ball? I think I remember Geoff Large mentioning this somewhere on his website and would concur with the templates I made. Mikee’s pockets definitely seem to have more radius on the openings before the fall which would make potting along the cushion easier? Power shots down the cushion on my table tend to rattle in the jaws sometimes, and occasionally fly out into the opposite pocket! Which is fun! Lol

[mikee]

Mine tends to take the ball well on or near the cushion ,most shots if struck correctly will suck straight in ,it’s the striking correctly that’s the problem most of the time for me lol .What I have done before is put the white about 3 feet from the pocket and about an inch off the cushion ,play the ball very slow to deliberately miss the pocket and catch the cushion about two or three inches before the opening ,near jaw side ,it’s amazing how many balls will drop ,just like on the tv ,they have to be played slow though .

[Danger Steve]

I feel some experimentation coming on for this evening!

[mikee]

Another thing Steve that Geoff told me ,was that when BCE took over the contract the steel cushions they used when bolted on the table over hang the table by a couple of mill less than the old style ones ,thus bringing the fall of the pocket in to play sooner ,if you know what I mean ,not sure if this is the case with Star ,it all depends how the blocks are fitted .All these things come in to play on how a table plays ,not just the actual size of the pocket .One thing I do think they is true new cloths and cushion cloth makes a differance ,on my old B &W table years ago I had pockets cut to match style ,it was fine until the cloth got some wear ,then shots near the rail were not possible with pace I had them opened slightly at the re stretch a few months later .The pros are always playing on nice new cloths so those shots are possible at all times ,which to me seems pretty pointless having corners cut like that ,the games hard anyway ,but it needs to be fun .

[Danger Steve]

Right OK... interesting, I wonder if that was easier/cheaper than ordering the slate with a more generous cut-out? My corner pockets I would say are club cut which makes them slightly easier, yet the middle pocket is actually slightly tighter than my slate template and the do play very tight! Any sort of power from a bit of an angle that isn’t perfectly hit just gets spit back out!

[mikee]

It’s very odd and can do your head sometimes ,my middles seem tight ,but I don’t get balls spat out ever ,you can knock a ball in to the middle from the black spot ,ok it’s not easy but the shots on .Steve do you get any bounce out from the middles if you belt one at full pace straight in to the back of the leather ,like the back brass plate acts like trampoline and spits a perfectly good shot back on to the table .

[Danger Steve]

Mikee, tried a few shots last night as I was starting to second guess..

Middle pockets take a power shot fine, if you clip the near jaw ever so slightly the pocket will spit the ball back out if struck at pace. Power shots hit clean into the corners are also ok, if you catch too much of either jaw the ball will just rattle and either drop or fly out. Slow shots down the cushion that hit cushion before the pocket will still go if it’s just a glance, anything more than a slight glance and it’s a miss!

Big Day today! My first match against someone who can actually play in probably 20 years... Fingers crossed I can take some of this solo practice into the game...