This is proving to be a challenge - but a good one!
Someone wandered into my shop, with pieces and parts of a broken-down, much abused base to a pool table. Sometimes, when a furniture component arrives in pieces, it's difficult to figure out how it is supposed to look. So a little research brought me to this photo - a vintage Brunswick Billiard Table, specifically - the "Celebrity" model.
"Celebrity" indeed - this base has long seen its glory days! One of the best parts about the internet is doing research on things like this - and I loved this old advertisement for the pool table.
These parts came to me in the worst of shapes - it almost appears that they've been repaired before, and it's possible some of the mounting holes have been re-drilled.
In this case, I'm a woodworker,
not a miracle worker!
I had to re-assemble this base, to get the correct spacing of the mounting holes.
This piece was SO wonky and warped, it was a challenge to get it to fit back together.
Not to mention that the entire base was made of compound angles.
It's a good thing I love geometry! I was running out of workbench space in the shop, so the trash can pulled double-duty that day.
Here's the new base, bolted together upside down, so that I could check for the correct hole placement.
I'm assuming this fella didn't want to get four of his best friends to lift the slate top onto the base, only to find out that the holes didn't line up!
And once again - I neglected to shoot a photo of the base assembled and UPRIGHT... but you get the idea. (Too many people in the shop this week, I was completely distracted about shooting good photos, but I think maybe one of the visitors might have one of the base.)
This piece was a challenge - both in its design as well as its construction. Part of the challenge was computing all of the angles. Figuring out how to make the base strong, with more modern joinery was a good exercise for me, too.
How do you get better at woodworking? Build a piece like this!
