Billiard > snooker table conversion.

[Sea Chief]

Hi chaps,

you may recall I did a thread on our "frustrating [village hall] table" with v. tricky pockets (seemingly too small, to my naiive pov) then pro-fettled by opening up jaws 1/4" & filing back drop points 1/2".

All in vain. Table plays, even MORE frustratingly, much the same. As before, only dead-weight pots possible, 95% of time. I believe now that trying any more to fettle the jaws is a dead-duck.. & I think the core reason is that its an unconverted billiards table C~1950's ('riley arrowflite cushions' a plate says on side) therefore unsuitable for 'modern' game of snooker.

So I'm back at sq1. The Co who fettled it, after my insistance that work's done jack-all to the way it plays (they insisted it now would play like a snkr club table), to their credit gave us a refund. Us being the vllg committe, whom I have promised to get the table sorted for snooker, so, we can generate income/ folks have an enjoyable game on at last.

What I'm now under the impression of -thanks to great info & help chiefly from Terrance Davidson here- is that these old billiards tables CAN & often were, converted to snooker tables by replacing the rails. So this is what I'm now considering. Any help with the basics, before I go searching (wherever some s/h rails may be found), of such a conversion.. is appreciated. I aim to fit them with help ourselves, rather than pro-done: we simply don't have budget to spend on a pro job. If I can build myself a fine bathroom w'out prior knowledge.. I/ we can do this.

Thanks, Sea Chief.

[Terry Davidson]

I think the 'do it yourself' method could lead to a disaster. My recommendation would be to contact Geoff Large on here and ask his opinion, however Geoff makes his living from fitting tables so he may not want to help you out for free so ask him how much it would be and get an estimate and then look at your budget and see if you can stand it.

I don't remember saying you had to replace the rails and cushions on an old billiard table because I don't believe that myself as I think a good table fitter like Geoff can get that table playing fine with minimum effort (unless it has steel blocked cushions which entail more work to modify the cushions)

[Terry Davidson]

Geoff can be contacted through his website 'gclbilliards.com'

[Sea Chief]

The prior thread had posts of various folks saying their old blrd table had same probs, & no ammount of fettling done elieviated it.. & the only solution was replacing the rails > which lead to a table everyone wanted to play on/ a major fix.

You see we had a pro fitter, as I explained, come out & not only re-fettle the pocket shape but also file back the bed drop points. So I don't understand your voicing the opinion that there is still legs in adjusting the table as it is, even more.

I did approach Geoff Large & only got a reply from his wife sayinmg it would be prohibitively expensive, based over 200m away/ 50p per mile, b&b overnight apart from the £200+ cost of refettling. But that was before we had the other fitter, local in comparison, come do I'd assume exactly the same work as GL would have done.. for no results whatsoever.

Very confused now. It seems very clear esp after the efforts done, & I was sure you concurred, that this blrds table -cannot- be made snooker playable as it is & nothing short of replacing the rails, or replacing the cushions (I still don't know the difference/ or is this the same word for same thing) can solve our problem.