Magnetic Pool Table Billiard Cue Ball !?!?!

Valley and Dynamo both use magnetic cue balls. It is so the cue ball gets returned to the player and does not end up with the regular balls in the ball trap.

Valley uses what they call a "Cat's Eye" cue ball. It has a hole drilled into it where the metal slug gets inserted. Then the hole is plugged, ground, and polished.

Dynamo uses a cue ball with metallic 'speckles' in the phenelic, sort of a coating I guess you'd call it.

In the old days, the way the cue ball was prevented from going in with the regular balls was that the cue ball was physically a larger diameter, typically 2-5/16" or 2-3/8" diameter. Conventional pool balls are 2-1/4" diameter.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, when the cue ball is rolling through the chute it triggers a reed switch, prompting a mechanism to kick it over to the return lane.

The other way they do it (the way most of the tables we have played have been setup, whether we knew it or not) is that the cue ball is slightly larger than the other balls. They all roll through a ring but the cue ball gets stuck at it; then the kick over to the return lane occurs.
 
Speaking as a serious pool player, if you have to play on a barbox, you'd prefer to play on one with the magnetic core ball. If they did it right, it'll be the same size and weight as the other balls. This will allow you to put good spin on the ball to get good cueball movement...
 
Back
Top Bottom