I'm building a Bar Billiards table and I need some help.

[jason]

Hi all, I'm from the USA and there are ZERO Bar Billiards tables any where close to me.  I really find Bar Billiards fascinating, and I am going to build my own table.  I need some help with dimensions.  I need the play area width and length, as well I need to know the measurements for the hole placements.   What is the distance from the top rail and the side rail to the top 5 holes.  What is the distance in between each of the top five holes.  Also I will need specific locations for the other 4 holes.  As far as the actual playing surface are they usually a felt cloth or a wooted cloth?  Are table covering stretched like when felting a pool table?  How is the felt attached to the holes?  Is it a pressure fit from the rings, or are the holes cut out and glued around the hole?  Thank you.

Jason..

[taffy]

here is a drawing of my best table, I have 7. This one is a Sams that had an MDF wooden base. Having played it for about 1.5 years I decided to make a superscore table, a table I felt and still feel is for the future of the game.

Note that all the top 5 pockets are set further back which allows the diagonal reverse 200 more easily and means more balls will run along the back along a narrower corridor and are more likely find a hole. by pulling the 100 back but sending the 50s forwards, a cue ball can hit the cushion then the ball in the diagram and then roll over and into the 100. The 50s are more infield because you need the extra 5-10mm. Lets say a ball sits against the cushion right adjacent to the 50 hole. Another ball can't pass the sitting ball twxt ball and pin but with this set up the cue ball squeezes through and clips the sitting ball that comes off the cushion into the 50 hole.

You'll note what might sound like a contradiction. The 30 hole just goes back but the 20 holes go back and out while the 10 holes do it even more in the corners. yes, the 10-holes do go 'OUTWARDS' cutting down the room for the reverse diagonal 200 shot but you gained that room by sending eth holes back to the back cushion. the net effect is that the corner reverse 200 shot still has a little more room but you can do reverse 200s between the 10-20 and even the 20-30 holes. The table is riddled with shots!

Its a very high scoring table and I put up a youtube video of it with me getting over 20,000 points on it in one game 'wi-mesellff'. Just search something like 20,000 bar billiards...dull as dishwater but well.....

This table layout is for 4-pin. if playing three pin then standard will do - i guess.

Taffy

[taffy]

These diagrams show the new shots that are on with a modiified table. The reason for the two different distances to the 50 hole are because that is what I measured and not what i wanted!

The manufacturers actually leave 2-4mm between the slate and the wooden frame. The idea is that you get the slate clothed, cupped and laid in the frame. You then add the cushions temporarily and held by a spare pair of hands or whatever and then you start measuring really, really carefully.

you want the distance to the middle three holes from each cushion to be exactly the same to the mm. to get this you have to pop the cushions out and then use wedges of wood. what doesn't help is that the wooden frame will bow in or out on old hardwood tables and it the frame comes in or out; so does the cushion so that measurement can go to pot. So, sometimes I'm not just wedging for the slate position but if I support one side with 5 wedges correctly, I can jam out a bowed-in side on the other side with a single wedge in the middle because 1 wedge's pressure can't fight 5.

unfortunately, on that slate, i got the middle line and top 5 spot on but one 50 hole is more infield than the other....shame!

when you have this middle line bang-on, you then glue down the D with its middle line in line with the 3 holes (200, 100, 30). Then you can use the leatherette panel to keep the tail of the leather on the D that falls in the gap out-of-site - well that can now be forcefully squeezed tight during the glueing process.

As for the cloth in your original question; There is only one answer to that as Sav here has taught us all, you want the fastest shortest cloth (read; most expensive) you can get! "shagpile" is no good here. Bouncy cushions and fast cloth are vital to excellent performance.

The problem is that one ball is near a hole and the other ball is off to a hole multiple distances away. On a slow cloth you hit the ball so hard to get one ball heading say back to a 50 that the cue ball goes in a hole near the contact point at 90mph! Or you hit the balls softer and have the opposite problem and this time the object ball didn't make it to its intended target and ran out of legs.

The faster the cloth means that both balls get to stay down in a softer shot.

Now I recently did a thread on a 'narrow' i did before Christmas and discovered a new technique that i've used three times now and really works whereby

Nov 10, 2021 11:49:30 GMT taffy said:

I've just increased the number of tables done with my contraption to 5 and it is without a doubt really proving itself now. I took up - i think it was Alan Mee's suggestion - to use a "copydex" type rubber glue, for those outside the Uk it is what infants would use and is both weak and safe.

Photo 1; bought the glue off ebay...simple enough. The basket is the "squeeze cone cage" in your mop & bucket. I simply cut the bottom off. I then got 8 rubber bands and 8 small crocodile slips. feeding the rubber bands into the cone cage is easy and I just leave the bands in the jaws of the clips.

photo 2; you can see the crocodile clips inside all pulling hard on the rubber bands. If you had little hands you could have the cone cage up the other way but my hands peel 10 bananas a day..... Now you can fit the pocket ring and tap it in!

photo 3; I've started glueing the underside of the 8 flaps of the cloth and put the pocket ring in the wrong way up. I then tap the ring in and it drags the cloth in with it brilliantly. I can't tell you how well this works! But a loose ring isn't quite as effective...but still draws the cloth into the hole, you just have to perhaps tap the ring in further. I'm experimenting with glue on the visible side of the flaps of cloth for looser rings, so to give it a bit of bite when tapping in.

the cone cage can be moved immediately onto the next one.

This really works. My one fear for you is that your concept or feel for driving the rings into what size hole is going to be different to mine. The hole in the slate needs to be around 62.4mm I think Sav and I agreed. With the thin (good quality) match cloth; that works and the rings suck the cloth down the holes. The glue under the flaps is pressed against inside wall of the holes in the slate. That is all they have. Alan Mee (he uses the nom-de-plume "Alan Turner" here) shows a great youtube video of pulling down hard a cloth and stapling it.

You should be glueing a wooden frame around the perimeter of the slaate. I make mine out of 3/4" 9-ply.


cheers

Taffy

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[jason]

Thanks a bunch Taffy. I may have more questions for you in the future. :)

[Chris_Sav]

There is plenty of advice on standard table maintenance and measurements in that section.