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Valero, et al,
I picked up my table yesterday. Although I am excited to get started refurbishing this table to playable status, I have concluded that it is NOT an Irving Kaye table. Too many differences. Ball return at end in a tray vice on the side, no markings, no corner brackets , small machine feet. I have attached a photo of the original rail and rubber, so I will have to custom cut some rails on my table saw. Thanks for all the pictures and history. I think the German thing is particularly interesting.
Valero,
Many thanks for the slate pictures and the possible south of the border origins of the table! I plan to pick it up within the next two weeks and hope to find either manufacturer’s markings or maybe I can send some better pictures of the internal ball return workings to determine the make.
What has me stumped is, if it is NOT an IK table, then why only two diamonds on the end rails? Did any manufacturer other than IK do this?
More to follow…
John
It would also be interesting to hear from other IK owners to find out what model they have and the playing dimensions of their tables to see if their tables are also not twice as long as wide. I wonder if IK purchased slate with length and width already cut and if there was an efficiency gained by having bumper pool and six pocket pool tables cut to the same dimensions (although usually bumper pool tables are less than twice long as wide). IK Klub pool tables are close to the dimensions of his smaller 6 pocket billiards tables.
When I subtract your playing surface dimensions from the exterior dimensions from the flyer in the photo gallery, it appears that each rail width, from nose to exterior edge is approximately 5″ which makes sense.
Your inside rail measurements confuse me.
I asked Dr. Dave from Colorado State why a table would be slightly longer than twice the width. He did not have an answer, and referred me to published standards.
It would be interesting to find someone who worked for Irving Kaye who might have been involved in the design of their tables.
I still think the answer is linked to the 1/3 table diamond system and the small playing surface. The size of the balls, pockets, and distance from nose to sites do not change, but the distance between noses does. So, as you shrink the playing surface size proportionally, the angles formed by the sites do not remain constant- they get more and more obtuse. Perhaps the elongation of each half of the table by 13/16″ was added to compensate for the angles growing less acute.
Are the side rails wider than the end rails? Based on the dimensions on the flyers and the dimensions you sent (assuming my math is right), the side rails are 1 3/8″ wider than the end rails. Is this correct?
I have found an old IK Fleetwood in need of restoration and parts and I’m trying to get as much insight on parts in case I have to buy new parts or attempt to manufacture my own.
Also trying to crack this mystery of the additional 1 5/8″ in length. Going to hit up some math teacher colleagues for their input.
What is the distance from the nose to the center of the sites on your table? Is the distance from nose to sites the same on long and short rails?
Your table not being twice as long as it is wide is strange from a systems point of view. I wonder if that contributed to the adoption of the 3 x 6 grid? As the playing surface shrinks, but the distance from the nose to site does not change, altering the angle between sites, if employing a diamond system.
I would be interested to get your feedback on comparing what banking relationships you find on your table compared with the relationships I found on my 8′ table which is exactly twice as long as wide.
Although the stories you have heard about the tables being narrower than normal proportions to fit more in a pool hall is plausible, only saving an inch hardly seems worth the effort if your table plays funny. It seems unlikely as there is not a standard size of a pool hall, and the additional width to make the table I’ll bet the decision to make the table slightly elongated was not a casual decision. Kaye had to have known that if his table played differently than others in the industry, he was at risk of losing customers. I suspect the decision to employ 3 x 6 sites was related to the length being 2 x width + 1 5/8 inches. Unless some architectural archives are discovered, the reason for the non-standard length/width relationship and the non-standard site placements may be lost forever. If you find there are a lot of additional banking options than you would find on a standard table, I think that would solve the mystery.
Here are the relationships on a 3 x 6 grid on an 8 foot pool table. I cannot guarantee the absolute accuracy of my table or my masking tape markings replicating the 3 x 6 grid on smaller IK tables. It would be interesting to see if these relationships transfer with minor changes to English applied.
It would be interesting to compare the dimensions listed on the old flyers for the overall dimensions of IK tables vice those coin op tables of the day made by American Shuffleboard and Valley and Cougar.
I know Valley made some tables with pretty small playing surfaces- 6 1/2′ x 3 1/4′. I know I have seen one old box bar table that was actually as small as 6′ x 3′. If the dimensions are not twice as long as wide, the whole system no longer works, so I suspect that any narrowing took place in the rails, not the playing surface or the distance between nose and feather strip or the distance from nose to center of the sites. You can’t make a table much thinner without impacting the dimensions of the pockets, especially the sides. Smaller, but proportional would make sense, just narrower seems like it wouldn’t work. The Satellite has an overall dimension of 75 x 45. That’s a pretty small playing surface.
