Topic: FOOSBALL table corners

[icanplayfoosball]

My Foosball table didn't come with the corner ramps or side ramps . So what happens is that when the ball reaches the corner the Foosball men cant reach it. It creates many dead spots. I have 3-2-5-3 formation and i still cant reach it. I seen them sell it but its to expensive. What can you think of to put there. I was planning to go to the home depot and see if i can see something that resembles that. ANy ideas?

[foozkillah]

My Foosball table didn't come with the corner ramps or side ramps . So what happens is that when the ball reaches the corner the Foosball men cant reach it. It creates many dead spots. I have 3-2-5-3 formation and i still cant reach it. I seen them sell it but its to expensive. What can you think of to put there. I was planning to go to the home depot and see if i can see something that resembles that. ANy ideas?

It seems obvious that if you have a completely flat, rectangular playing surface and your goalrod wingers cannot touch the ball in the corner, then either your playing men are too short, or the end bumpers of those same goalrods are set too thickly.

You say you have 3-2-5-3 configuration, a pretty standard config shared by Tornado, Harvard, Sportcraft and many other tables.  This also means the goalrods have a winger figure on either end.   Either your goalrod wing players are too short to reach the ball, or their rods' bumpers or spacers are set wrong.   Perhaps if you could attach pictures of your table, in the relevant areas, we on this board could get a better reading of whether you got the right playing figures or simply have wrong goalbar spacer settings.

I've only ever heard or seen of the Tornado add-on ramps for the corners, which are designed specifically for Tornados converted to single player goalroads, so I don't know if there is any other orthodox way of resolving your corner reach problem.

[WillD92]

You might check to see if the rod is backwards if it is a low end table.

[foozkillah]

A quick N dirty way is to attach a plastic soda bottle cap, upside down or right-side-up doesn't matter, with some double-sided tape, flush into each of the 4 corners.

That should take care of all your problems with a ball stuck in the corners.  Or just do the same deadball re-serve that people around the world do when the ball goes dead on the playing field anywhere in the goal and 2bar area.  It's a dead ball, reach in and put the ball back in play within reach of either the goalrod's figures or the 2bar's figures, just like EVERYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET!

What kind of corners do you have, anyway?  Magnetic corners that somehow suck the ball in for KEEPS?   Keep it simple and just enjoy yourselves.

[icanplayfoosball]

Yeah the rubber bumpers on my table are really hard. they don't bend when the rod is pulled back or the other way. I might buy flexible ones. My table is 5 inches from the play field to the top edge. its an low end table. TAKE A LOOK http://twitpic.com/nrc4d

[foozkillah]

Yeah the rubber bumpers on my table are really hard. they don't bend when the rod is pulled back or the other way. I might buy flexible ones. My table is 5 inches from the play field to the top edge. its an low end table. TAKE A LOOK http://twitpic.com/nrc4d

Now you're talkin'!  Before you replace the bumpers that might be the proper bumpers for the table, which would mean a complete difference in playability never meant for that table, as well as the major pain it would be to replace them on the two goalrods...

Check those white foosballs to see if they're a millimeter or two smaller than a standard 34.5mm or 1.37in.  That might be your easiest and most advantageous alternative.  Buy or scrounge a couple of the larger balls.  If those in that twitter pic are the "hard as rock" whiteballs, then they're prolly the cheaper 33mm balls I've seen a lot of times and at a lot of places over the years, especially when too many good balls disappear from a promoter's foosball route.  Or they just run out of the proper balls to replace normal attrition at their venues.

[icanplayfoosball]

Yup,i cant get the exact length of the ball but its close o 34.5. AND YES they are hard as ROCKS. I actually realized that. I wondered with all the hits we have given, how come the Foosball men have not broken. I am going to see if a can get a new ball and possibly change only the bumpers of the two goalie rods. The ones that cant reach the corner.

[foozkillah]

One easy way, if you are going to pull the two goalrods out, is to just get a "Dremel" or similar handy sander to just burr off 2 mm or so of the bumpers.  That way you wouldn't even have to buy new bumpers.  I seriously doubt you would ever have to break and replace those bumpers anyway.  Only 2bar, 3bar and 5bar bumpers ever really get worn enough to crack or break.

Once you have them off, get a ruler, mark a line and shave off the excess.  This and larger, rounder, less hard-rock balls should improve your play, by magnitudes.

[PatRyan]

I would go with a small side strip.  if you shorten that bumper, the man could break if you pinch that ball into the corner. 

just mt 2 cents

PR

[foozkillah]

That's a great idea, but a small side strip, if it's wide enough for the bottom of the ball to get onto it, could cause more playability problems, even change the whole nature of the table.  So if you do, make sure the side strip is narrow enough, and just wide enough to cause the ball not to stick to the walls.