Sapele

So, I keep saying "Greene and Greene" - if you look at a bunch of pictures of their work you will see a lot of what's now called "genuine mahogany" - treated with a magical concoction that the Greene brothers came up with that brings out the beautiful dark rich color of the wood and the relatively simple, but beautiful grain structure.

You can't buy any reasonable quantity of genuine mahogany today and you can't get any reasonable sized pieces - we just harvested it out of existence.  You'll hear all sorts of people's opinions about the substitutes - "african mahogany" (usually Kahaya), "phillipine mahogany" (usually Lauan) - there are many popular substitutes.  The only one that I think is really pretty and comes close to the same look as the genuine Honduran mahogany is flat sawn sapele.  And that's where the problem arises.  Sapele has an internal structure that causes it to display a distinct "stripe banding" when quartersawn - I'll not go into it, I'm sure the internet has many references to the names for different ways to cut a log into boards.  I think the bands are ugly - everybody else loves them and so, a lot of Sapele gets quartersawn.

When I bough the wood for the beam wraps in the room where the pool table will live, I was able to get enough rich, dark flat sawn sapele to do the job.  When I went to buy more on Saturday - every board they had was quartersawn.  I hit two other places with similar results.  When I stopped driving and started letting my fingers do the walking I found huge quantities of quartersawn, but none flat sawn.  Let me try to share the difference:

The picture maybe doesn't even really show how very different they are.  Flat sawn on the left, quartersawn on the right.  That board on the left is oriented with the center of the tree at left and has a bit of almost sapwood showing at right.  A good, all heart board is even darker and prettier.

A lot of places are closed on the weekend.  So, I got to calling around on Monday.  I pretty much tried everyone in Northern California, then Oregon, Nevada, Washington.  Gave up on maps and started just using Google to find people who claimed to have the stuff I wanted.  It began to look like I was going to be paying a bit less than $8 a board foot for rough sawn lumber on the east coast.  I'd be looking at a few hundred dollars freight so I'd have to buy a lot.  It would take a couple of weeks.  I'd be buying sight unseen, random widths (though sapele boards run wide), probably mostly 8' and under lengths to help control freight cost.  And, when it got here, I'd have to surface it before I could use it.  I've put huge quantities of wood through a small planer before - I suppose it's a cheaper way to burn fat and add muscle than going to the gym.  It really started to look like a $4500 bill to fill my precious storage space with more sapele than I would ever be able to use.

I could just go to the store and buy a nice pool table...

But, one of the suppliers that I called put me on to a place that my Google searches had not found - Saroyan Lumber in Livermore - less than an hour away.  They have 20,000 board feet of rough, flat sawn sapele in their yard in LA - can pick me out a small amount, get it here, surface and straightline it and deliver it to my house before this weekend!  Oh, and it's $6.75 a board foot.  Still, random widths so I have to buy a lot and sort the pieces and build other stuff with the rest of it.  I'll need about 80 board feet for the pool table - I ordered 250.  I have a good feeling about this, but, I did just buy ~$1700 worth of wood sight unseen...

So, running cost tally on this pool table - $200 for the old table, and what?  80/250 of the $1700 lumber bill?  That will be true if I use the rest for something else, not so true if I don't.

What I got for $200

The table I bought for slate is an old (I think 50's, but more on that later) "Atlas" built by Victor Billiards in Philadelphia - It's serial # 2207.  The slate frame has lettering from Victor and, in the same style, lettering indicating it was sold to Oakland Billiard Supply - so, I think it has been on the west coast all of its life.

 It's serial #2207 - says so on almost every piece:

Of course, the big surprise was that it has a steel base.  I initially thought that this didn't matter, I was only going to keep the slate.  I would build  a new wooden trestle base in the Greene and Greene style and it would be fine.  But, this table has a perfectly good, apparently sturdy slate frame  - so I would keep that.  Here's a photo of the base and slate frame with one end taken apart:

Upon closer inspection, I realized that the slate frame and the steel base work together - the frame is bolted to those steel side and end beams and is bolted to the legs.  Also, there are pockets on the side and end beams where the cross beams and longitudinal beams fit - like this:

And, as you can see in the wide shot, the slate fame comes apart for shipping - it's held together by being bolted to the legs and the side beams all of which are also screwed to the legs.  I'll save time and materials if I keep most of that.  It's pretty easy to bolt pieces of 4/4 sapele wood to the side and end beams to hide the sheet metal.  But, what about those legs?  I could just wrap them in sapele but it would be a bit of a hassle dealing with the curve.  Wrapping them in sapele veneer might work but I've not had great experiences with veneer in the past.  It should be pretty easy to build replacement legs using a lock miter bit to make a square tube of sapele then adding t-nuts where the beams bolt on.  So, that's the plan - new legs, covers for the outside beams, keep the steel beams and the slate frame.

I should mention that the people who disassembled the table had no idea how to do so and did some damage.  The piece of slate frame that's lying upside down on the base in the photo above was broken as they tried to pry the corner block off - they had only removed one of the screws, but that doesn't matter as it was also glued.  A little West Systems epoxy in the split piece and then some thixed West Systems where the corner block attaches and it's as good as new.  They also bent one of the tabs on the far leg, but that isn't going to matter.

At first, I was concerned because they had pried the slate backing off of the slates.  I was under the impression that the backing added strength and shouldn't be removed.  I think a lot of people believe that - which is why some people glue the backing to the slate.  But it's not true, the primary purpose of the backing is to provide something to tack the felt to.  It also spreads the support of the shims.  Most backing is not glued on, mine never was - around the outside edges it was screwed to the slate with flat head wood screws down through the top of the slate.  Along the seams, it was attached with some sort of lead expansion anchors which seem to have failed as much from corrosion as from the former owner's pry bar.  Here's a lead anchor and what's left of the spot in the slate that it was attached to:

It's a fairly common thing to replace the backing when moving a table - it gets pretty perforated after several felt replacements and has to be replaced.  Mine could easily go another felt or two, but while the table is all apart, new backing is in order.  Here's a pocket hole showing the condition of it:

This will be quick, cheap, and easy.  The old backing and most traditional slate backing is poplar.  Poplar is cheap and easy to work with - some people now use MDF which is probably cheaper, but won't stand up to nearly as many rounds of tacks.  I'm tempted to biscuit the new backing together, but the old backing is mortise and tenon - the mortises are really just slots cut on a table saw - quick, easy, strong - I might as well copy it:

So, from the bottom up we have base, slate frame, slate backing, now let's look at the slate itself.  First, the table is what's known as oversize regulation or 8 1/2 foot.  I bought it sight unseen and the seller knew nothing about it.  I've got a really big room - could have fit a tournament table.  Most people play on an 8 foot regulation table.  Maybe if I practice on my table a lot I'll have an advantage over people used to a slightly smaller table.  The slate is 1" thick, three piece:

It has doweled seams.  This is neither good or bad, except that, at some point in the past, someone pried where they shouldn't have and split the ends of one piece:

This would be death, ruined, unusable slate, but it split downward, the bulge is on the back.  I may have to relieve the backing a bit but it will be OK. I'm tempted to pull the pins, inject some epoxy and clamp it up but I'm afraid I'd only make things worse.

There are different styles for pocket cutouts, mine are both rounded over and beveled which is good:

Now, the biggest issue (or issues) the rails bolt to the slate edges.  I've seen this referred to as 'pre-war style'.  The rail has a part that hangs down beside the slate, long bolts with big, special heads go through and into the edge of the slate and there must be threaded anchors buried in there.  Here we have a rail end, bolt, and slate edges with bolt holes:

One article that I've read about building a table with used slate says not to buy one of these or to redrill it for modern, through-the-slate, bolts.  I can't do that, there isn't enough overhang to bolt up through the slate into the rails.  I think it will be fine, or maybe better.  Modern tables have a little play at the bolt holes, you get the rails adjusted so that the play field is exactly the right size and the pockets openings are exactly right and then tighten the bolts against special spring washers.  It all relies on friction to keep the rails exactly where they belong.  The side bolt scheme is much more solid.  It may be that it doesn't allow for adjustment or maybe it's designed to require a bit of shim between the slate and the rail to get the dimensions perfect.  I will probably aim for that - but there's still time for expert table mechanics to offer advice...

Now that I've mentioned play area, I have to say that mine is currently not right.  A friend and I temporarily bolted rails on both sides of one slate - the play field, measured between the tips of the (felted) bumpers is 46 1/2 inches wide - it's supposed to be 46.  Again, it doesn't matter - I planned to build new rails, the old ones have glued on walnut top rails and are beat to crap.  Plus, one more piece of damage from misguided disassembly, they pried out one of the sights, maybe thinking there were screws underneath?  Sigh.

You see the chip on the left where they drove a tiny screwdriver in under there?  Had I really taken the time to look at what I was getting, I probably could have negotiated the price to $0 - they guy just wanted to stop paying rent on the storage unit.

So, in the process of making new rails with beautiful sapele tops, I can adjust the play field to correct dimensions - just have to check that the pocket holes in the slate are legal (a measurement known as 'shelf') - though there is a lot of slop in the corner pocket shelf specification and a little in the side pockets.  I plan to buy premade sub-rail blanks - they sell for not much more than the material to make them would cost and they look like a pita to cut exactly right.  I'll probably cut the oak sub-sub-rails off the existing rails, though they would be drop-dead easy to make. In another post, I'll include some drawings of the current rails and the ones that I plan to make.  I've drawn it in sketchup just to be sure that it can be done and it's going to be just fine.

It would be nice to know where the extra 1/2" of play field came from.  Here's a theory: the rails were designed for K-55 cushions - 1 5/16" high and 1 1/4 wide - but it looks like somebody installed K-66 cushions - which are 1/8" narrower - this would account for 1/4" of the extra play field width - the other 1/4" could be cushion shrinkage.  The old cushions were good, cloth backed, cloth top - but they are old and dry and I'm building new rails, so I'll be buying new cushions - I think that gluing the new cushions on scares me more than anything else.  Or not, accurately cutting the pocket openings on the new rails will be an adventure.  Here's an old rail with the felt pulled back:

I plan to buy new pockets.  I've got all of the original pocket irons and shreds of the original pockets:

But, they are pretty shot.  Also, they require rectangular rail mortises (on the original rails, these were cut on a tablesaw just like the mortises in the backing) and they were made to work with the original, butt ugly, painted steel fanels:

This will all be replaced with sapele fanels.

If you're having trouble picturing the old table all together, I'm pretty sure that it's the top photo in this catalog page: http://lanzabilliards.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/scan0002.jpg

As I said in the introduction, I'm hoping that an experienced pool table mechanic will see this and contribute to my education.  At the moment (8/23/15), I could toss the whole thing and find a different starting point.  But, I really do think this table can be made good.  And, it's totally not about money, I like to make things and to learn.  I've been sorely tempted to go to the store and buy a nice table - but I'd miss out on the experience and wouldn't have a table that exactly matched the rest of the room.

Introduction:

We had a good thing going with weekly pool/poker parties at a friends house - until he moved away.  So, I decided to remodel the living room and put in a pool table.  I'm doing the living room with hints of Greene and Greene style - the wood beams and some wood paneling will be rich, dark sapele and I want a pool table to match.  I enjoy woodworking when I have time, so it would be fun to make a pool table.

I've already done some work toward building my table and a plan has formed - it seems like it's going to be a lot of fun.  Along the way I've had to search the internet over and over for information - it's surprising how much there is to learn.  There are some pool table forums out there and some really good advice on them.  In my other hobby, I build high power rockets like these guys: http://www.tripoli.org/ .  There are some great rocketry web sites where builders post 'build threads' chronicling their progress, sometimes teaching others and sometimes seeking help from the collective wisdom of the internet.  This blog is my build thread for a pool table - in particular, I'd love to hear from experienced pool table mechanics and players - maybe you can help me make the table better.  And, since I get the mechanics of carpentry, but often fail at the art, perhaps a woodworker will happen along with advice on the Greene and Greene style as well.

I was watching Craigslist for used tables because I needed good slate and a good used table is a way to get slate at a low price.  I quickly bought a table for only $200 - before I had a clue what I really needed.  When I went to pick it up (with more buddies than necessary, slate isn't that heavy), I was immediately worried that this table had been disassembled by fools and maybe even the slate would be worthless.  But, as I've learned, it's a lot more complicated than that.  I need to go out to the shop and take some pictures. In the next post, photos and details of what that $200 investment bought.