Pool Table
We have sold and installed over 30,000 tables and are committed to your lifelong satisfaction with our products. Our tables are handcrafted by the Spencer Marston Billiards Company, one of the most highly rated manufacturers in the world.
pool table
**Due to the natural variation in wood and the hand-applied, multi-step finishing processes the actual finish may vary from the table pictured. The finish may vary slightly from the other products in the collection due to the wood and finishing process.
All American Heritage Billiard pool tables are guaranteed by a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects and craftsmanship from the date of purchase of the original owner. Cloth is not included with purchase. Purchase your choice of cloth style and color separately.
This pool table requires professional installation. Please reach out to an American Heritage Billiards customer service expert to locate a dealer near you who will coordinate the delivery and professional installation of your new pool table.
Generally speaking, smaller tables are easier to play on, making for fun family time, but regulation-sized tables allow for a greater variety of game types. The best materials for competitive play tend to be solid wood frames, a slate playing surface, and rubber cushions, though experiences may vary. Finally, consider aesthetics. Pool tables run from standard to absolutely stunning, so take this into account when buying.
Slate: Slate sits under the fuzzy cloth on the top of your pool table and allows your ball to glide across the table. You can typically choose between one-piece or three-piece slate tables. Each has its pros and cons, so do your research to see which is best for your needs.
Legs: Like with many other pieces of furniture, you can choose from a variety of pool table legs, from the simple to the ornate. Usually the bigger and more stylized ones you choose, the more expensive they will be.
Are there associated costs? You may know how much the pool table will cost, but there are also ancillary costs to consider, such as installation, setup, and necessary accessories like cues, racking triangles, cleaning cloth, a table cover, a cue rack, and even chalk.
Even a mid-grade pool table costs $2,000 or more. Protect your investment by purchasing a warranty to go along with the table. Most tables come with a limited warranty covering simple repair jobs and basic maintenance tasks for a couple of years, but if you plan to have that table for more than just a few years, an extended warranty is a good idea. Also, some of the companies that manufacture luxury tables made from real hardwood, slate, and rubber offer lifetime warranties with each purchase. Do your research ahead of time.
Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, pocketless billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score points or "counts" by caroming one's own cue ball off both the opponent's cue ball and the object ball on a single shot. The invention as well as the exact date of origin of carom billiards is somewhat obscure but is thought to be traceable to 18th-century France.[1]
Carom billiards is popular in Europe, particularly France, where it originated. It is also popular in Asian countries, including Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Vietnam, but is now considered obscure in North America, having been supplanted by pool in popularity. The Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB) is the highest international governing body of competitive carom billiards.
Most cloth made for carom billiard tables is a type of baize that is typically dyed green, and is made from 100% worsted wool with no nap, which provides a very fast surface allowing the balls to travel with little resistance across the table bed.
The three standard balls in most carom billiards games consist of one white cue ball, a second yellow cue ball and a third, red object ball.[1] Historically, the second cue ball was white with red or black spots to differentiate it; both types of ball sets are permitted in tournament play.[8] The balls are significantly larger and heavier than their pool or snooker counterparts, with a diameter of 61 to 61.5 millimetres (2.40 to 2.42 in), and a weight ranging between 205 and 220 grams (7.2 and 7.8 oz) with a typical weight of 210 g (7.5 oz).[9]
Billiard balls have been made from many different materials throughout the history of the game, including clay, wood, ivory, plastics (including early formulations of celluloid, Bakelite, and crystalate, and more modern phenolic resin, polyester and acrylic), and even steel. The dominant material from 1627 until the early- to mid-20th century was ivory. The search for a substitute for ivory use was not for environmental or animal-welfare concerns but based on economic motivation and fear of danger for elephant hunters. It was in part spurred on by a New York billiard table manufacturer who announced a prize of $10,000 for a substitute material. The first viable substitute was celluloid, invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868, but the material is volatile and highly flammable, sometimes exploding during manufacture.[1][10]
In 1879, a variant called the "champion's game" or "limited-rail" was introduced with the specific intent of frustrating the rail nurse.[1] The game employed diagonal lines at the table's corners to regions where counts were restricted.[13] Ultimately, however, despite its divergence from straight rail, the champion's game simply expanded the dimensions of the balk space defined under the existing crotch prohibition which was not sufficient to stop nursing.[1]
Balkline succeeded the champion's game, adding more rules to curb nursing techniques. In the balkline games, the entire table is divided into rectangular balk spaces, by drawing pairs of balklines lengthwise and widthwise across the table parallel from each rail. This divides the table into nine rectangular balkspaces. Such balk spaces define areas of the table surface in which a player may only score up to a threshold number of points while the object balls are within that region.[1][14][15] Additionally, rectangles are drawn where each balkline meets a rail, called anchor spaces, which developed to stop a number of nursing techniques that exploited the fact that if the object balls straddled a balkline, no count limit was in place.[1]
In its various incarnations, balkline was the predominant carom discipline from 1883 to the 1930s, when it was overtaken by three-cushion billiards and pool. Balkline is still popular in Europe and the Far East.[1]
Cushions (also sometimes called "rail cushions", "cushion rubber", or rarely "bumpers") are located on the inner sides of a table's wooden rails. There are several different materials and design philosophies associated with cushion rubber. These cushions are made from an elastic material such as vulcanized rubber (gum or synthetic). The purpose of the cushion rubber is to cause the billiard balls to rebound off the rubber while minimizing the loss of kinetic energy.[citation needed]
On a carom table, the K-55 profile is used (with a somewhat sharper angle than pool cushions). K-55 cushions have cloth, usually canvas, vulcanized into the top of the rubber to adjust rebound accuracy and speed.[3]
Most bar tables, which get much use, use the slower, thicker blended felt because it is cheaper. This type of cloth is called a woollen cloth. By contrast, high-quality pool cloth is usually made of a napless weave such as worsted wool, which gives a much faster roll to the balls. This "speed" of the cloth affects the amounts of swerve and deflection of the balls, among other aspects of game finesse. Snooker cloth traditionally has a directional nap, upon which the balls behave differently when rolling against vs. running with the direction of the nap.[citation needed]
Sights, also known as diamonds (for their traditional shape), are inlaid at precise, evenly spaced positions along the rails of some tables (not usually on snooker tables) to aid in the aiming of bank or kick shots. There are seven along each long rail (with the side pocket interfering with where the seventh one would go, on pocket billiard tables) and three along each short rail, with each of the four corners counting as another in the mathematical systems that the diamonds are used to calculate. These sights divide the playing surface into equal squares. Books, even entire series of books, have been written on geometric and algebraic systems of aiming using the diamonds.[citation needed]
Spots are often used to mark the head and foot spots on the cloth. Other markings may be a line drawn across the head string (or across the balk line with the "D", in British-style pool). Another case is the outline of the triangle rack behind the foot spot where the balls are racked in straight pool, since the outline of this area is strategically important throughout the game. In artistic pool, lines may be drawn between opposite sights putting a grid on the playing surface. Other grid patterns are used in various forms of balkline billiards. A recent table marking convention, in European nine-ball, is the break box.[citation needed]
Regulation 10 5-foot carom billiards tables have a playing surface (measured between the noses of the cushions) of 2.84 by 1.42 metres (9.3 by 4.7 ft) with a 5-millimetre allowance.[5] The standard height range of the table, measured from the playing surface to the ground is between 75 and 80 centimetres.[citation needed] 041b061a72