Ruxton Paladin Series Pool Tables
Probably the best way to describe Ruxton Billiard Mfg. is that we are a specialty game company. We’re not large, we don’t have 20 different styles, and we don’t make excessively ornate tables or tables that try and hit every price point. But what we are very good at is building tables that are attractive, affordable and have features that aren’t found in other tables and are of a direct benefit to you as a consumer. If you are one of the fortunate few who are looking for that perfect piece of furniture and have a lot of money to spend, I kindly suggest that you save yourself some time and move on to other billiard websites. For the rest of you, I’ll try and explain what separates us from everyone else.
No other table best exemplifies what we do better than our Paladin series of tables. Outside of cabinet styles, both the Paladin Ultimate and Paladin Classic have the same features.
Although both Paladins are available in solid natural wood, the vast majority of the Paladins we make are completely (rails, aprons, cabinet, legs) covered in high pressure laminate. HPL (as it is called in the industry) is, in my mind, the best product for pool tables. Unlike natural wood, it is burn, stain, scratch and impact resistant and not only comes in a variety of wood grains. To their credit, the laminates of today look an awful lot like natural wood.
To read more about the difference between High Pressure Laminate and natural wood - click here
Both Paladins feature solid hardwood rails that are 1 ¾” thick (rather than the normal 1 ½”) and feature 5 rail bolts (this is what attaches the rails to the table) rather than the usual 3 bolts found on almost every table on the planet. The advantage is that the added thickness adds weight (mass) to the rails and when combined with 5 bolt down points on each rail, the result is exceptional rebounding.
The cabinet (the main body of the table that the slate sits on) is constructed of 1” plywood. To be honest, this is severe overkill (our Western uses ¾” plywood and is still plenty strong) but, what the heck, these are Paladins we’re building and you deserve to have a cabinet that’s strong enough to support 10 slates.
The legs are a combination of plywood and hardwood. To again give credit to the building materials manufacturers, regardless of material (hardwood/plywood/particle wood/mdf/abs) you would have to get down to bottom feeder level before the strength of the legs on any table would be a problem.
Our tables use a one piece, ¾” thick slate (official league/tournament size) and a one piece 7/8“ slate on 8‘ tables. You also have an option to upgrade to a 1” thick one piece or a 3 piece slate. Although there are many important components to a pool table, the most important one is slate and because of this, I’ve created an entire page on the subject. This is critical knowledge that you, as a potential customer needs and I suggest that you read this carefully until you understand exactly what these differences are. An uninformed decision about slate can (and probably will) over the lifetime of the table, cost you more money in service work than the original cost of the table. Yes, it really is that important.
To learn About Slate - click here
Additional Features
Built-in Triangle Holder - In the world of leather net pocket tables, we are the only company that has a special slot in the end of the cabinet designed specifically to hold the triangle. Some companies screw a hook (or nail) somewhere in the cabinet to hang the triangle while most do nothing. If the triangle hangs on a hook, it gets kicked off under the table or stepped on and broken. If you don’t even have a hook you can play another fun game called “find the triangle”. “I thought I left it over here. No. Is it behind the couch? Here it is, under the dog!”. With our tables it’s always in the same spot.
Built-in Accessory Drawer - Opposite the end that holds the triangle, we’ve installed a drawer that has individual slots for: (4) cues, balls, short cue, brush/chalk. (see picture) Do you really need a storage drawer? Probably not. You can leave the balls in the pockets, the cues and a couple pieces of chalk on the table and put the brush/short cue/box of chalk in the corner. You could also drop another couple of hundred and some ugly wall rack. Our built in drawer is just a very nice functional feature that eliminates the problem of what to do with all of the extra accessories.
Hardwood Bridge Rests - Another nice functional addition is hardwood rests attached to the outside of the cabinet. That way, you’ll always know where the bridge is and they really accent the look of the table. Most other tables don’t have anything, so the bridge can stand in the corner and the ones that do are simply ugly hooks attached to the underside of the cabinet.
Hardwood Leg Levelers - When assembling a table, the legs are attached to the cabinet (the main portion of the table) and then positioned in the room. The next step is to level this assembly to the floor. On virtually all other leather net pocket tables, even those that sell for $50,000, the way this is done is by placing flat wood or rubber shims under the table. The higher the pitch, the more shims. Most times these shims sink into carpet and aren’t seen, but I’ve seen very expensive tables in very nice rooms with a couple inches of shims under them. Or, if your table is going on hardwood floors, when you look at the bottom of the leg you can see a gap between the leg base and floor. Either way, it looks cheap and unprofessional. All of our tables use either hardwood or metal leg levelers. On Paladins they’re hardwood and look like a part of the leg. It is also incredibly easy to level the cabinet compared to having lots of shims that are different thicknesses.
Playing Accessories - Several decades ago, when I owned two retail billiard stores, we purchased playing accessories individually. You’d go to one distributor for cues, another for balls etc. Now, all that has changed. Today dealers buy playing accessory “kits” . The typical kit contains (4) two piece cues, balls, triangle, chalk, table brush, under rail brush, bridge head (not the entire bridge, just the head) and a cheap plastic cover and a plastic pea bottle. Very convenient for the dealer. The problem is that most of the stuff in these kits is junk. I’m sorry, there isn’t a polite way for me to say this. I do know that there are pretty good play kits that you can upgrade to, but they cost between $400-$800.
I still buy playing accessories individually. That way I have control of the quality of the items. With our tables you get: (4) very high quality 57” cues and (1) quality short cue, a good set of balls, unbreakable black plastic triangle (not some cheap wood one) a 100% professional horsehair brush (with the nylon or combination nylon/horsehair brush in these kits, you’ll spend more time picking brush hairs off your table than the actual brushing) and a 12 pack of high quality professional chalk that’s made in the U.S..
Table Sizes - Our Paladins are available in two sizes: 7’ (League Tournament Size - 40“ x 80“ playfield) and standard 8’(44“ x 88“ playfield).
For an explanation of pool table sizes and the room needed for one, please click here.
No other table best exemplifies what we do better than our Paladin series of tables. Outside of cabinet styles, both the Paladin Ultimate and Paladin Classic have the same features.
Although both Paladins are available in solid natural wood, the vast majority of the Paladins we make are completely (rails, aprons, cabinet, legs) covered in high pressure laminate. HPL (as it is called in the industry) is, in my mind, the best product for pool tables. Unlike natural wood, it is burn, stain, scratch and impact resistant and not only comes in a variety of wood grains. To their credit, the laminates of today look an awful lot like natural wood.
To read more about the difference between High Pressure Laminate and natural wood - click here
Both Paladins feature solid hardwood rails that are 1 ¾” thick (rather than the normal 1 ½”) and feature 5 rail bolts (this is what attaches the rails to the table) rather than the usual 3 bolts found on almost every table on the planet. The advantage is that the added thickness adds weight (mass) to the rails and when combined with 5 bolt down points on each rail, the result is exceptional rebounding.
The cabinet (the main body of the table that the slate sits on) is constructed of 1” plywood. To be honest, this is severe overkill (our Western uses ¾” plywood and is still plenty strong) but, what the heck, these are Paladins we’re building and you deserve to have a cabinet that’s strong enough to support 10 slates.
The legs are a combination of plywood and hardwood. To again give credit to the building materials manufacturers, regardless of material (hardwood/plywood/particle wood/mdf/abs) you would have to get down to bottom feeder level before the strength of the legs on any table would be a problem.
Our tables use a one piece, ¾” thick slate (official league/tournament size) and a one piece 7/8“ slate on 8‘ tables. You also have an option to upgrade to a 1” thick one piece or a 3 piece slate. Although there are many important components to a pool table, the most important one is slate and because of this, I’ve created an entire page on the subject. This is critical knowledge that you, as a potential customer needs and I suggest that you read this carefully until you understand exactly what these differences are. An uninformed decision about slate can (and probably will) over the lifetime of the table, cost you more money in service work than the original cost of the table. Yes, it really is that important.
To learn About Slate - click here
Additional Features
Built-in Triangle Holder - In the world of leather net pocket tables, we are the only company that has a special slot in the end of the cabinet designed specifically to hold the triangle. Some companies screw a hook (or nail) somewhere in the cabinet to hang the triangle while most do nothing. If the triangle hangs on a hook, it gets kicked off under the table or stepped on and broken. If you don’t even have a hook you can play another fun game called “find the triangle”. “I thought I left it over here. No. Is it behind the couch? Here it is, under the dog!”. With our tables it’s always in the same spot.
Built-in Accessory Drawer - Opposite the end that holds the triangle, we’ve installed a drawer that has individual slots for: (4) cues, balls, short cue, brush/chalk. (see picture) Do you really need a storage drawer? Probably not. You can leave the balls in the pockets, the cues and a couple pieces of chalk on the table and put the brush/short cue/box of chalk in the corner. You could also drop another couple of hundred and some ugly wall rack. Our built in drawer is just a very nice functional feature that eliminates the problem of what to do with all of the extra accessories.
Hardwood Bridge Rests - Another nice functional addition is hardwood rests attached to the outside of the cabinet. That way, you’ll always know where the bridge is and they really accent the look of the table. Most other tables don’t have anything, so the bridge can stand in the corner and the ones that do are simply ugly hooks attached to the underside of the cabinet.
Hardwood Leg Levelers - When assembling a table, the legs are attached to the cabinet (the main portion of the table) and then positioned in the room. The next step is to level this assembly to the floor. On virtually all other leather net pocket tables, even those that sell for $50,000, the way this is done is by placing flat wood or rubber shims under the table. The higher the pitch, the more shims. Most times these shims sink into carpet and aren’t seen, but I’ve seen very expensive tables in very nice rooms with a couple inches of shims under them. Or, if your table is going on hardwood floors, when you look at the bottom of the leg you can see a gap between the leg base and floor. Either way, it looks cheap and unprofessional. All of our tables use either hardwood or metal leg levelers. On Paladins they’re hardwood and look like a part of the leg. It is also incredibly easy to level the cabinet compared to having lots of shims that are different thicknesses.
Playing Accessories - Several decades ago, when I owned two retail billiard stores, we purchased playing accessories individually. You’d go to one distributor for cues, another for balls etc. Now, all that has changed. Today dealers buy playing accessory “kits” . The typical kit contains (4) two piece cues, balls, triangle, chalk, table brush, under rail brush, bridge head (not the entire bridge, just the head) and a cheap plastic cover and a plastic pea bottle. Very convenient for the dealer. The problem is that most of the stuff in these kits is junk. I’m sorry, there isn’t a polite way for me to say this. I do know that there are pretty good play kits that you can upgrade to, but they cost between $400-$800.
I still buy playing accessories individually. That way I have control of the quality of the items. With our tables you get: (4) very high quality 57” cues and (1) quality short cue, a good set of balls, unbreakable black plastic triangle (not some cheap wood one) a 100% professional horsehair brush (with the nylon or combination nylon/horsehair brush in these kits, you’ll spend more time picking brush hairs off your table than the actual brushing) and a 12 pack of high quality professional chalk that’s made in the U.S..
Table Sizes - Our Paladins are available in two sizes: 7’ (League Tournament Size - 40“ x 80“ playfield) and standard 8’(44“ x 88“ playfield).
For an explanation of pool table sizes and the room needed for one, please click here.