The Phoenix Gets Its Game Back

Oct 2, 2011

This pro. eight-foot pool table named The Phoenix was manufactured by the now-defunct Beach Mfg. It was purchased new about 10 years ago and installed on carpeting in my client’s upstairs game room. The San Clemente, CA residents hired us to do a new flooring move so that the carpeting could be replaced throughout the home. On the day we arrived at the home to disassemble the pool table, I noticed that all the cushion rubber was hard. I mentioned this to the Mr. and he told me that he’d noticed a change in the way that the billiard balls bounced off of the rails. I explained to him that this was caused by the pool table manufacturers’ use of poor-quality cushion rubber. I let him know that it was pretty common these days to see the use of this type of inferior cushion rubber.

Generally speaking, quality cushion rubber should have a normal life expectancy of 20-30 years. Although this pool table was installed in a room with two large windows, the combination of cheap cushion rubber and some indirect sunlight exposure was probably the cause of his dead cushions. This in no way reflects the lack of quality of this pool table or any pool table manufactured by Beach Billiard Mfg. The photos you see here are of the pool table being set up after the new flooring was done. We replaced all of the dead cushions with new Velocity K-66 cushions, a high-quality rubber cushion.