snooker table opinions please

[jhr145]

Sorry Geoff the only Jubilee tables I played on were metric so I assumed all were 8 tables in a club in Stirling called Frames which opened round about 1980 the club has a sloping floor so only Jubilee were used because of the jack up legs

[Geoff Large]

Sorry Geoff the only Jubilee tables I played on were metric so I assumed all were 8 tables in a club in Stirling called Frames which opened round about 1980 the club has a sloping floor so only Jubilee were used because of the jack up legs

well as stated in 35 years I have never seen a metric jubilee and I am sure metric slates where not imported until the back end of the 1980s .
I had been a fitter at Elston & Hopkin around 13 years before I had even seen a metric table and they where 3 years old at the time coming up for their first recover and did not realise they where metric until i came to mark one out , I am also sure most fitters who have worked on the Jubilee will confirm that they also have never seen a metric Jubilee .
They would soon find out as the centre line of the spots on a normal 244inch by 73.5 inch slate is 36.3/4 inch .
like I said it is impossible to swop slates over from a metric to an imperial table
as the imperial tables cushions would be too long to fit the metric slates .
and I did swop over a jubilees slates to a karnhem and hillman around 2 years ago as the slates on the K&H where badly cracked .
We have two imperial jubilees in stock , they are not a table you come across often as due to their odd design they are not to everyone's liking .
I can honestley say in 35 years I have only worked on around 12 jubilees to thousands of normal 8 leg tables .
I have worked also on the Rubbish Riley starline tables of the 1970s which also looked odd in that they where enclosed underneath with fibreglass , and the support of the slates where on trestles , with 2 adjustable bolts at the base of each trestle for leveling , a very unstable table in that if someone takes a shot down the table , an oponent could lean on the table and the ball would alter direction . also to strip a starline down it would take twice as long to recover than a normal table due to concealed screws and all those removable panels that also enclosed the cushion . like I said one to avoid and they do surface on ebay often , some with normal cushions on as they realise the extra recover time on the paneled in cushions is going to cost more .

If Norman clare was alive I am sure he could shed some light on a metric jubilee , but I am sure his son Peter clare at Thurston could if contacted look in the company records to see if a metric jubilee was ever manufactured . my guess is if any have been made it was to use the metric slates that they had in stock up , but this would have been towards the back end of the 1980s .

Thurston will still make a brand new starline today for around £6000 , and by the advert on thurstons web site , to usa pool spec as well as imperial sized . but it would not be in Thurstons interest to manufacture a table today in metric size due to governing bodies within the Billiards industry who would not reconize any high breaks of players as table did not conform to correct dimensions , I am sure they must have used all their metric slates up from stock by now , most of which where used on the standfast table .

Geoff