I Need A Pocket Plate

[Mike P]

Hello, I am hoping that someone can help me. I am looking for one pocket plate for an old Burroughes & Watts snooker table. According to Geoff it dates back to the 1880's. I have included two pictures of the plate. In the second picture, I have used a ring to hold the plate square to the scanner. The distance from centre to centre of the bolt holes is 165 mm or 6 ½ inches. Does anyone know where I can purchase one?

Mike

[Geoff Large]

hi mike , the pocket plate is the older type of B& watts , the gap in the middle is for a piece of leather to be inserted , this gave the outer leather more life from splitting at ball contact in middle of plate , where 99% of balls strike .
I am away as from today working up in north yorkshire , but I may have one in the junk pile under my bench ,but will not be able to look until the weekend , if not Brian at Cheshire billiards may have one .
google cheshire billiards they are based near S****horpe north lincs .( name of town has a word that this forum blocks ...lol)

www.cheshirebilliards.co.uk

top plates where the early type of plate used upto the 1880s and maybe a little later , but these pocket plates took over from about 1887 on wards , I get this info from adverts , advertising the new hidden pocket plates , the very early top plates did not have a leather covering it , but had inserted leather strip in a rabate unde the top edge for the ball to cushion against when potting , these plates tend to break for heavy shots such as in a Snooker game , the leather insert was carried over into this plate and was used until around 1910 , after this date the insert for the leather was not there on tables manufactured .
Mike did youre table have slides over the cushion bolts or buttons , slides indicate a later table late victorian Edwardian , buttons early type Victorian .
I would say youre table is dated between 1887 and 1910 .

Geoff

[Mike P]

Hi Geoff, thanks for the reply. Due to you being so much help to me with my table, I will wait until you return. My table originally had cushion sliders on it. A friend and I made the cushion bottom slide moulding(out of walnut) and cushion slides . I purchased some burl walnut veneer that I am gluing to the slides. I also glued the burl walnut to the leg bolt covers. I have not been able to stain and varnish the wood as of yet, but that is my next project. I am wondering if you have any of the bolts and nuts that fasten the steel blocks to the slate? I have one that is stripped.

With the insert on the plate, was the leather just fitted into that small section, and then the pocket leathers covered everything?

Thanks for all the help.

Mike

[maryfield]

I have one of these. email me at melonheid@live.co.uk

[Terry Davidson]

Mike:

Is the picture of the one you want to replace or is it one of your good ones? I couldn't see any break in the brass so I was wondering if you couldn't just get that gap filled in by a metal worker and filed smooth once he's done.

On another note...One of the problems we have here in Canada is getting parts for these British tables. I have a BCE Westbury steel-blocked and I'm missing a total of 5 rail bolts and have one slate where the rail bolt socket is missing. I'm also missing a few of the rounded nuts that go on the end of the pocket tracks. Does anyone out there have some Westbury parts?

I'm planning on recovering the table in the next month or so and would love to be able to get all the missing parts. Right now my top cushion is a bit high and the balls jump off it and I have to correct that somehow too, although the baulk cushion seems fine so maybe I'll switch them.

Terry

[maryfield]

Terry

Is the cushion too high? Sometimes when they are to low the ball can jump. This can be rectified by stapling a thin strip of cloth to the underside of the cushion before fitting to the table, thus raising the cushion slightly. Try that first before thinking about reducing the height of the cushion.

[Mike P]

Mike:

Is the picture of the one you want to replace or is it one of your good ones? I couldn't see any break in the brass so I was wondering if you couldn't just get that gap filled in by a metal worker and filed smooth once he's done.

On another note...One of the problems we have here in Canada is getting parts for these British tables. I have a BCE Westbury steel-blocked and I'm missing a total of 5 rail bolts and have one slate where the rail bolt socket is missing. I'm also missing a few of the rounded nuts that go on the end of the pocket tracks. Does anyone out there have some Westbury parts?

I'm planning on recovering the table in the next month or so and would love to be able to get all the missing parts. Right now my top cushion is a bit high and the balls jump off it and I have to correct that somehow too, although the baulk cushion seems fine so maybe I'll switch them.

Terry

Hi Terry, the insert I mentioned is the recessed area that can best be seen in the first picture. It is at the deepest portion of the plate. The picture is one of the good irons. The one I am hoping to replace has been manufactured out of aluminum. It sticks up higher than the other corner plates and causes you to strike down on the ball when cueing over it.

With your foot rail being high, I was wondering about the causes. Three things that come to mind, (1)would there be too much cloth under the rail, (2)is it torqued at the centre, (3) you mention that you are missing some bolts, are any on that portion of the rail? After saying all of the above, I could be out in left field. There are far more qualified and I am sure Geoff can be of help.

If no one on here can help you with your missing parts, perhaps these will work,
http://www.peradon.co.uk/pages/equip...ntainence.html
http://www.peradon.co.uk/pages/equip...cketrails.html

I have purchased new pocket nets and a few other items from them. When I contacted Peradon, they directed me to order through Thurstons, their retail outlet. You would use the part numbers from the Peradon site. If I am unable to get an older slate bolt, perhaps we can go together on an order.

Mike

[Mike P]

I have one of these. email me at melonheid@live.co.uk

Hi Maryfield, thank you for the reply and offer. Seeing as I said that I would wait for Geoff to return, I will have to take a rain check. I will definitely be in touch if Geoff does not have the right one. Thanks Again.

Mike

[Terry Davidson]

Mike & mary:

I very carefully measured the height of my cushions and they are all exactly the same but I did find something interesting with the top cushion only.

It looks like the rubber on my top cushion has 'scooped' somehow and the bottom part of the flat section sticks out a little further than the top and the rubber is a little concave rather than being absolutely flat like the other cushions.

When I take off the cloth I will have a look at this and see if I can correct it with a little gentle sanding of the rubber before I re-cloth.

Terry

[Geoff Large]

hi Mike , I have had a look and sorry no Burroughs and watts plates , I must have used them at some time in the past , the leather insert has to be glued into the recessed part of the plate , then a leather is sewn over everything , later pocket plates where the same size but did not have the recessed part in them .

if maryfield has one then you should be sorted .

Terry the rubber in youre descripton has slipped down slightly , this could be because the under support has a gap beteween it and the rubber , or the glue has failed holding the rubber onto its block , this is normal when you see people sitting on cushions it breaks the upper bonding tape and forces rubber off at that point .
some people complain about Balls jumping off cushions , this could be one of three things ,

1 cushion rubber detaching falling off blocks , remedy reglue and put bonding tape on top & recover

2 Cushion block is not correct size and rubber is lower than centre of ball ,remember it is the bottom edge of the rubber that makes contact with the ball not the flat face .
remedy, try the cloth strip first under the cushion then if that works , on the next recover leave a strip under the block before you recover .

3 Cushion cloth is worn and ball is slipping at contact , grease from sweat of hands is another cause . remedy new cushion cloth .

when some of these tables where manufactured the normal cloth of the time was No6 , a very thick cloth and most blocks that the rubber sits on where planed to acomadate this thick cloth , when we recover in 6811 which is amuch thinner faster cloth the rubber is now low due to the cloth not being thick and contact with ball is low so balls jump .

fastening a strip of cloth under the block before a recover is one way around it , New blocks of correct size is the best remedy , fastening a strip of cloth after a recover will cause an unsightley gap under the cushion .

[Terry Davidson]

Thanks Geoff:

I plan to re-cover the table with #10 sometime within the next month or so and I will have a close look at that rubber. All the other cushions seem to be fine but the top cushion jumps.

When I shoot the spots just hard enough for the cueball to come back to the brown spot there's not much problem but when I jack up the power to 4 table lengths the cueball will jump around a foot along the bed when I hit the cushion on the first leg.

Terry

[Geoff Large]

hi Terry , I would strip the top cushion down and mark the top of the rubber across the block every 4 inch with pen , take the rubber off , and clean the block face up and the back of the rubber , use good qaulity contact adiesive ( cobblers contact adiesive or evo stick ) and reglue the rubber back on , leave both surfaces until almost dry to touch before making contact , making sure you line the pen marks back up , make sure the rubber is level with the top of the block .
Use a good quality 2 inch gaffa tape to put on top of rubber and block and trim the overhang off at each end .

measure the bottom of the block to under nose of cushion , this should be just over the half size of a ball , a ball is 2-1/16 so 1-3/2 is the half way way mark to this contact point , if the nose is lower the ball will jump , if it is high the ball will trap under and you will not get the full bounce .

as I have mentioned , most original blocks of these older tables are for the thick no6 cloth , no 10 cloth is much thinner , so you may have to put a thin strip of cloth under the block before you recover the cushion .

Geoff

[Terry Davidson]

According to a note written on one of my rails, this table is the 1968 Pot Black table. Not sure if that's true or not but I am sure it's that old so I'm going to check the block heights when I re-cloth.

I have a friend with a 1910 B&W table with steel-blocked cushions and will also let him know about this as neither of us even thought about it

Terry