Used Star Tables

[Danger Steve]

All this recent talk of tables and steel cushions brought me back to a question I had been thinking about... Why do you rarely if ever see Star tables up for sale on the 2nd hand market?? Is it because they just don’t last long enough or because there so good people don’t want to part with them??

[mikee]

Well Steve it’s tin hat territory now lol,They are made out of inferior products that’s for sure .

[mikee]

the Janka hardness of a meranti wood which is what the Star is made out of comes in at 825 lbs ,Sapele Mahogany which is what the Aristcrat and Westbury is made of is around 1510 lbs .Meranti is a fast growing Philippine wood that the USA use a lot for floors and back of furniture and ply wood ..Star tables are double bolt legs though and two inch slate ,although the slate is soft compared to Italian slate which in turn is not as good as Welsh .Star legs are painted gold because they are made up of hundreds of pieces of cut offs compressed together ,so to hide a multitude of sins ,these can crack due to temperature change over time ..word snooker use these tables as they are cheap and Star came in with the best offer .
15 grand for a Star is a joke ,why we don’t see many for sale ,who knows .Bce/Riley steels are twice the price of Star ones as well .Rasson tables seem better ,I've not seen or played on one but they are made of a decent laminated hard wood with better quality and come in around 9 grand all in .People think Star tables are the Mutts nuts because they seem em Tv ,but they only have to play well for a week or so and the fitters are on them all the time .Over the last 10 years I have seen more balls roll off on the Stars than any other table .I think they are crap .

[trying]

I guess while Star are the tour table then pros will want them and people will hang on to them. If and when they are no longer the tour choice then more may end up out on the second hand circuit. No doubt with ever increasing tales of which tournament table it was or whose practice table each one used to be

[Danger Steve]

Don’t hold back Mikee, tell us what you really think!!! Lol luv it!

It just always seemed odd, there are so many Star tables out there yet no 2nd hand ones.. as mentioned I suppose if the day comes that they loose the tour contract they won’t be able to give them away fast enough!

[Cue crafty]

The best player i play with locally told me he played on Stuart Binghams old Star table which he used to practice on in Rayleigh lanes snooker hall, he said it was terrible, he'd rather play on our Thurston Standfast tables in the WMC. The truth is, as Mikee pointed out, if they arent given due care and attention i.e. regular maintenance and they are played on with the heavy traffic of a club, then they soon play pretty badly.

[Shockerz]

The best player i play with locally told me he played on Stuart Binghams old Star table which he used to practice on in Rayleigh lanes snooker hall, he said it was terrible, he'd rather play on our Thurston Standfast tables in the WMC. The truth is, as Mikee pointed out, if they arent given due care and attention i.e. regular maintenance and they are played on with the heavy traffic of a club, then they soon play pretty badly.

It's a strange one that. I've heard the Star's aren't the quality you'd expect.

You'd have thought that as long as they are recovered, rubbered and the pocket's sorted they would be ok.

Do you know what the main issues are with them, what's goes wrong?

Considering how tight the pockets are the rest would have to be spot on or it would be a bit of a nightmare.

[Cue crafty]

It's a strange one that. I've heard the Star's aren't the quality you'd expect.

You'd have thought that as long as they are recovered, rubbered and the pocket's sorted they would be ok.

Do you know what the main issues are with them, what's goes wrong?

Considering how tight the pockets are the rest would have to be spot on or it would be a bit of a nightmare.

I think youve nailed it pretty much with that last line above Marc. I used to play in the club where it is, in the winter it felt drafty and cold until the heating kicked in, there were standalone heaters in there and sometimes humidifiers as well. These tables are made with cheaper parts than an Aristocrat for example, the main wood as Mikee confirmed in another post isnt mahogony its am asian species of hardwood that grows quicker and isnt as dense. Also the legs are made from micro chip wood compressed into shape, hence why they are painted gold to hide the inferior product.

So if you consider the foundations of the table are subject to some movement in these conditions, you get an unlevel surface and then the nightmare begins. The club owner avoided costly maintenance and just charged (?)12 per hour for as long as he could and milked it to death pretty much. Now good players avoid it and only have a go Joes who want the novelty of playing on what they think is a pro table play on it.

I guess if you look after them in good conditioned rooms they will play well for much longer, but they need attention like a Ferrari and that costs...

[Shockerz]

I think youve nailed it pretty much with that last line above Marc. I used to play in the club where it is, in the winter it felt drafty and cold until the heating kicked in, there were standalone heaters in there and sometimes humidifiers as well. These tables are made with cheaper parts than an Aristocrat for example, the main wood as Mikee confirmed in another post isnt mahogony its am asian species of hardwood that grows quicker and isnt as dense. Also the legs are made from micro chip wood compressed into shape, hence why they are painted gold to hide the inferior product.

So if you consider the foundations of the table are subject to some movement in these conditions, you get an unlevel surface and then the nightmare begins. The club owner avoided costly maintenance and just charged (?)12 per hour for as long as he could and milked it to death pretty much. Now good players avoid it and only have a go Joes who want the novelty of playing on what they think is a pro table play on it.

I guess if you look after them in good conditioned rooms they will play well for much longer, but they need attention like a Ferrari and that costs...

Hi mate.
I had heard the slates were also thinner and prone to moving.

Obviously the Aristocrat is the way to go!! Hope all is well, just keep popping my head into the forum to see how it's going.

[mikee]

The slates are strangely enough thicker than the BCE and Riley tables which are one and three quarter inches ,the Stars are 2 inch ,.but the slate is not pure and more composite ,and as Cue Crafty says ,all that weight on a frame of poor quality timber is not good for a level playing surface long term .You only have to listen to the commentators at the events where the Rasson tables are used to know that the Stars are not well liked .Like Bingham's table I heard of another top 16 player that had his Star table serviced ,when they checked the level and jacked it up ,the wood frame splintered under the jack.Brass pocket plates can feel loose after a time as the wooden cushions are soft and the pockets are not underside bolted ,they are a two pin like the Riley ,but the Riley has decent wood ,so wear is not much of a problem .BCE plates are very wide and are bolted under the cushion straight in to the plates like the B & W tables were ..i'm sure there was a guy on here called Throtts that had a Star ,don't think he posts any more .