Dead Cushions? Already?

Nov 11, 2009

You have a beautiful pool table, but something is just not right. You can’t put your finger on it, but it just doesn’t play like it did when you bought it. It seems like the cushions are just not bouncing right. But how can that be? The pool table is only 5 or 6 years old. Cushion rubber is supposed to last like 20 years, right? What is going on!?

Here’s the scoop:
Recently, we have seen many pool tables less than 10 years old with bad cushion rubber. Some are less than 5 years old. Some were inexpensive to buy, but most weren’t. There are a few major pool table manufacturers that used a batch of cushion rubber that was inferior. It can affect only one or two cushions or all six. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason. But the truth is, if one rail has gone bad, the others are likely to follow suit shortly after. We’ve seen a few different brands of pool tables that have cushion rubber issues, but at the top of the list are American Heritage Pool Tables and Artisan Pool Tables. We’ve even seen it on a few Beach Manufacturing and Golden West Pool Tables. These are all nice, well-built tables that just had poor-quality rubber on the rails.

You can test your cushions by rolling a ball firmly against a cushion on the short side. It should make 3-4 cushion to cushion contacts before coming to rest. The telltale sign of a dead cushion is a “thud” noise on contact. Cushions should be quiet and lively.

Good pool table cushion rubber generally lasts 20-25 years, although some last longer. We can swap out your bad rubber for good rubber and get your table playing like new again.