The worst ever designed Snooker Table

[bricktip]

Sounds like they are a lot of trouble, but perhaps still a bargain to be had for someone who just wants to get a table and is not bothered too much. It'll be interesting to see the final price.

[Particle Physics]

Sounds like they are a lot of trouble, but perhaps still a bargain to be had for someone who just wants to get a table and is not bothered too much. It'll be interesting to see the final price.

I think that's the key; budget. A budget table is still going to be better than no table. If the cloth has plenty of life in it, the buyer has transport and manpower, maybe it's ok for a while. Having said that, there do appear to be other tables on ebay for not a lot of beans, that might be cheaper long term, due to the difficulty of working on this Riley mentioned above.

[Geoff Large]

Geoff I have had the misfortune of re-covering one of these. Never again! Bloody nightmare to work on. The one that I worked on was actually had a standard table frame below it which had been modified to accommodate the `cowling`. Another downside of them was the `cowling` acted like an amplifier for the rebound noise of the cushion. All in all best forgotten and left well alone.

I have recovered a few of them in the 1980s , but they are still out there , and if someone got on the phone to book for a table reclothing with one of these , then you are in for a shock when you get there , my reaction would be , oh no a bloody starline , the last one I worked on was taken out of a miners welfare in Worksop , we put an old antique table in and the miners where happy , the starline was taken in for storage and sold off for very silly money ,I think around £50 , we helped load the thing onto a customers trailer , he said he was going to put it up himself , we said great get on with it . that was one job I was pleased did not come our way . we never heard from him again so do not know if it ended up as junk in a corner of a garage or he actualy set it up . my guess he sold it on to an unsuspecting buyer for a profit .

[narl]

Pretty sure one of the american pool tournaments modified a 10x5 one of these to pool specs for a match between Earl (lunatic) Strickland and Shane van Boening. Pockets got cut a bit too square and they had some issues with that. If not this it was something similar, commentators said it was originally a snooker table overhauled and redone for pool.

[Jono857280]

Geoff,

I think I may (just may ) have you beat.

I used to play in a club that had a couple of beautiful Westbury BCEs (circa 1989 - classic era). As we all know these were the table that were used in the World Championsips at that time.

[Jono857280]

Geoff,

I think I may (just may ) have you beat.

I used to play in a club that had a couple of beautiful Westbury BCEs (circa 1989 - classic era). As we all know these were the table that were used in the World Championsips at that time. However, also in the club were 4 Chevillotte snooker table. Now as most know ,Chevillotte manufacture pool tables and never before or since have I seen these snooker table by them. They were dreadful. All the mouldings were plastic/formica and the legs were arranged in a contemporary triangular shape (very much like a fold up picnic table). Suffice it to say they were horrible to play on. Not sure what depth of slate there was but they just felt very unsteady to play on. If you see one on the web let me know.

Now I think of it, they also had a 'Wilhelmina' snooker table - never seen one of those before either.

I could tell the 2 beautiful Westbury tables were uncomfortable with such 'dubious company' in the room.

Jono

[100-uper]

There is a Riley Starline in a social club close to where I live. It has the most horrendously tight pockets of any table I have ever played on, with the fall of the slate set far back into the pocket. These tables were produced during the period of the switchover from imperial measurements to metric and I formed the theory that this one was a mixture of cushions and bed made to these different tolerances.

A question for Geoff or maryfield: would it be possible, on a Starline, to fit imperial sized cushions to a metric bed?

[vmax4steve]

There is a Riley Starline in a social club close to where I live. It has the most horrendously tight pockets of any table I have ever played on, with the fall of the slate set far back into the pocket. These tables were produced during the period of the switchover from imperial measurements to metric and I formed the theory that this one was a mixture of cushions and bed made to these different tolerances.

A question for Geoff or maryfield: would it be possible, on a Starline, to fit imperial sized cushions to a metric bed?

It was deemed OK for the WSC 1974

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwI9EJeAl5s

[Particle Physics]

It was deemed OK for the WSC 1974

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwI9EJeAl5s

How strange, the crowd are really close to the players, with drinks table and everything. Love it. The ref is counting the break and the diff and announcing both; can't see Michaela doing that! If one looks at Ray there, he's all boxer stance, weight central, and it strikes me, are the modern weight forward players with a square stance, exerting more pressure on the Starline than it was designed for, and making it wobble?

[Inoffthered]

It was deemed OK for the WSC 1974

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwI9EJeAl5s

All about the £££'s no doubt.

[philip in china]

Things were much more casual in those days in many ways.

How strange, the crowd are really close to the players, with drinks table and everything. Love it. The ref is counting the break and the diff and announcing both; can't see Michaela doing that! If one looks at Ray there, he's all boxer stance, weight central, and it strikes me, are the modern weight forward players with a square stance, exerting more pressure on the Starline than it was designed for, and making it wobble?

[Geoff Large]

There is a Riley Starline in a social club close to where I live. It has the most horrendously tight pockets of any table I have ever played on, with the fall of the slate set far back into the pocket. These tables were produced during the period of the switchover from imperial measurements to metric and I formed the theory that this one was a mixture of cushions and bed made to these different tolerances.

A question for Geoff or maryfield: would it be possible, on a Starline, to fit imperial sized cushions to a metric bed?

There was a pre production starline that looked very odd I think it was called the sheerline before they added the fibre glass shroud to it . there is a photo of this on Norman clares web site link here http://www.normanclare.co.uk/Riley.html , but the starlines I have worked on all had imperial slates size , and many have just had normal cushions fitted on them , like rileys in Leicester .

No you cannot fit normal imperial cushions to Metric slates or vice versa the metric slates are smaller both in lenth and width by around 1.5 inch , the only metric tables I have come across are Thurston clare padmore tables made around the late 1980s I think . , I have three metric thurston clare padmore tables local to me .

[salty]

ive got to move a starline in a couple of weeks but it has had new cushions fitted so wont be as bad as it would have been say 15 years ago they are ugly looking things now as the once white sides have been stained a kind of cream yellow after years of ciggarette smoke

[Geoff Large]

ive got to move a starline in a couple of weeks but it has had new cushions fitted so wont be as bad as it would have been say 15 years ago they are ugly looking things now as the once white sides have been stained a kind of cream yellow after years of ciggarette smoke

Wash the sides down with Traffic film remover , dilute it 50% with water . and put in a spray bottle , the brown yellow colour will just fall off .

[salty]

thanks i will give it a go, i hate recovering these tables although its been a long time since i have seen one that havnt replaced their cushions i worked on a table in a stockport youth club where the slates were not slates but a concrete bed still five pieces worst i have ever seen