Ever wonder how they shaped the bed of the pool table where the balls fall into the pockets? Neither did I.

…until I restored a pool table from 1938-or-so. The slate playing surface has very basic geometric cuts. The four corner pockets have a very wide, two-sided notch, and the side pockets  have a more narrow notch. Wooden inserts are shaped to fit into the notch, and when you cover the bed in felt, the balls roll from the slate, onto these wooden “pocket drop” shapes and fall into the pockets.

It turns out there’s a lot of discussion involved in how large are the radius of the hole — the big round part cut out of the wood that the ball falls into, as well as what the radius the balls rolls over as it falls off the cliff.

ɕ