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Don’t be discouraged – I resurrected my Apollo-8 (which has great sentimental value) from a similar state. At the end of the day, all that really matters is the slate and the rails. If the rails are in good shape, you just need to replace the felt and assemble it. My rails were in pretty bad shape, so I made new ones from PVC and rubber from Classic Billiards. CB also sells pocket liners and few other odd pieces for these tables.
My only problem is that it got hot and humid here, starting a couple of weeks ago, and now I have a big wrinkle in the felt. Clearly, I didn’t stretch it sufficiently. In part, I blame this on choosing teflon-coated felt, which does not wet.
So I need to lift my slate again, but the child who usually helps me has escaped, post-vaccination.
Does anyone out there have a Nortech slate lifter that they are willing to sell me for significantly less than the $300 that Nortech requires?
I also modified my Apollo-8 to use a magnetic cue ball, rather than the oversized ball. It was a simple mod and required only $20 worth of the right magnets, located in the right places. I was able to do it all through the ball return window in the side of the table (didn’t need to lift the slate). Here’s a little video of it in action: https://youtu.be/GuJIjJS-AIk
FYI, I considered getting new rails made by Penguin. In retrospect, that would have been easier and less expensive then making them myself. The reason that I didn’t do this was that Penguin wanted me to mail them my existing rails and I was afraid that, if the rails got lost in the mail, I would have a far bigger problem (notably a thousands pounds of non-functional pool table in my living room).
I made my own rails from PVC and U56 rubber from Classic Billiards. They came out lovely (the forum won’t let me post pictures).
