Swapping cushions

[itsnoteasy]

Hello, wondering if the table experts could give me some advice. Our club has one table that's tighter than 3.5 at the fall and I used to play on it all the time. We had the table fitters in and a few of us were going to club together and pay for it to be recovered and given a general tidy up( it's not a match table so the owner wouldn't recover it, but he did say if we paid for it ,it wouldn't get used by anyone else unless the club was full, not a big risk lol). Unfortunately when the fitters had a look at the table ,it had many faults, so after this long ramble, can we take the cushions from that table and stick them on another and will the pocket openings stay the same or change , all the tables are Karnehm and Hillman, although the tighter one has the turned legs and the others have the straight legs.

[nst]

To the extent of my knowledge, it should not matter very much if the tables are the same model. Assuming the bolt holes and other attachments line up, it should be workable.

Whether the new amalgam is tighter/looser would depend on the match when the rails are mounted. I assume you're talking about the entire rail assembly and not just the cushion and rubber.

You could also adjust the gap and undercut if u had the cushions redone when you move them and this would allow some control over the size.

Hopefully someone with more expertise chimes in

[itsnoteasy]

Yes whole assembly NST.

[nst]

Yeah so if you're not reclothing, just depends on how the attachments line up.

Generally you can get enough play to standardize the corner pockets to a size that work for you if you compromise a little on the middle ones.

No opinion from fitters?

[Geoff Large]

Not all cushions are interchangeable

but lets say you had 10 Riley tables with same slates then yes in theory you can change any set of cushions from table to table

if the slates are all nominal 12ft by 6ft 1.5 inch wide , and all had 3.5 inch radius slate falls , then the same opening would be present from one table to the next

some of these older table will not allow a template into the opening and some have wood on the rear in the way to open them up , which cannot be took off without butchering the table and making it look unsightly which is probably what happened when the other fitters where asked to remedy the openings .

I once came upon this at Nottingham snooker academy , they wanted an old table opening up and re-rubbered , I informed them i could improve it but that wood wa sin the way at the rear and I could not take this away
I was told to go ahead and re-rubber it so I did .
once done , one of the local team and also a Referee was informing me that the rubber could be opened up more , I told him this could not be done , what did they do they asked for another firm to come in , guess what that firm said ?
they said exactly what I had told them before I even touched it , that the wood to the rear could not be opened up so the rubber could not be glued further in .

The referee / player in question is also a snooker coach , now I know nothing about coaching snooker so do not comment on the subject , and from my experience with him he knows nothing about Billiard tables or pocket openings , so he should have kept his mouth shut and listened to me
I did however change over another tables cushions with a set of Burroughs and watts steel cushions and this table was well used and liked , my reward for doing all this and giving them sound advice and at a discounted price was to get another firm in to maintain the tables.

Here are some tables I have changed cushions over from other tables .
http://gclbilliards.com/replace-stan...-leg-in-derby/

http://gclbilliards.com/re-cover-poo...ue-ball-derby/

and this one that had slates from another table put on and the cushions had to be plugged and redrilled to fit http://gclbilliards.com/set-up-orme-...-lincolnshire/

so even if the bolt holes do not align up you can plug and redrill , we prefer not to of course as it is much easier to just swop over cushions that do align up for the bolts . you also have to look out for cushion depth though , a high cushion block that the rubber sits on can cause slow unresponsive bounce and a low one can cause balls to jump on impact with rubber .
also some slates although the same size and bolt spacings they can be thicker so the depth of bolt hole in the slate could be lower than the bolt hole in the cushion ,a simple enlarging of the hole may sort this problem out though .

one thing I like to point out though is bolt washers must always be present and if your table has round head bolts with just a slot in them and you get chance of a set of hex bolts then swop these over too as you can get a better torque up of hex bolts and a much better bounce out of the cushions .
if you put cushion bolts on without washers you will wear the bolt through the cushion , this is a very common problem that I come across , lazy fitters losing washers or just missing them out , I always try and keep a stock of cushion washers in my tool box to sort out this problem .

[Geoff Large]

As for karnehm and hillman tables , I have put a set of Riley Aristocrat standard None steel on this make of table before and the bolt holes aligned perfectly

[itsnoteasy]

Thanks NST and Geoff. I don't think there is any way the owner would let the cushions be redrilled and plugged, so I reckon they would have to fit in a straight swap. I will try and catch the fitters when they come back , just thought I would check if it was even possible first, thanks again.
I would hope they should line up ok Geoff, coming from the same tables, I don't know why this one table is tighter, but the pockets are lovely on it and I was hoping that the cushions could be moved and keep the openings the same size.

[Geoff Large]

I never had a problem opening up K&Hillman pocket openings

I once fully renovated a 10ft table from Scotland to Essex , with new Rubber and cut the pockets at 3.5/8ths inch at the fall and retro fitted adjustable slate supports , I doubt that the K&H tables in your club has these supports , but in my opinion will sort out any slate sagging .

http://gclbilliards.com/10ft-karnehm...land-to-essex/

the only problem with K&Hillman tables is the low cost aluminium pocket plates under the leather , they are bolted at the corners and two pin type on the middles .

the problem is the alloy breaks under impact it is not as strong as solid brass which can also break but not as easy as alloy .

[itsnoteasy]

I don't want them opened up Geoff, I want the tighter set moved to a better condition table so that ,that table then has tighter pockets.
Funny you say that the owner said the fitters had said the slates were knackered on this table, that's why I was hopping to remove the cushions and swap them on to a decent table.

[nst]

how old are these sets? based on what I seem to be reading, they are hardly maintained... if the rubber is already vulcanizing and you're losing bounce, you could have the set redone and that cutting process would give you some degree of control over the gap as well

[itsnoteasy]

God knows the last time the rubbers were done , not in the last 3 1/2 years since I have been going in. As for not getting cared for, the four match tables have just been done( not rubbers ,just bed and cushion cloth) the rest are very poor, there is not a table that has cloth on the pocket openings, it's worn away and some it's just rubber six inches up the cushion, the bed cloths are shagged, appart from the match tables ,none have been done ,what would be a reasonable price for a full set of rubbers to be fitted?

[luke-h]

does anyone know if you can interchange the top and bottom cushions of the same table? from what i read above it can be done? the club we play in the cushions are dead.

how much would a re rubber be?
thanks in advance.

[nst]

@itsnoteasy someone local would need to give you an estimate. I'm not in UK so likely not accurate price-wise.

@luke-h you can swap top and bottom yes. again, wont advise on the price for reasons above.

[markz]

Not sure how much a re rubber would be but on eBay a few listings are about 150 to buy the rubber. One listing stands out for 50 for full set of rubber for full size table.

[itsnoteasy]

The cheap rubbers are DPT, I googled them and noticed our very own Geoff Large had done some work on one of their pool tables ,maybe he can comment on the standard of the rubbers. IIRC it's always northern rubber that has been recommended before.