Air Hockey!?

[Dale Thompson]

Hi Folks,
I'd like to get an Air Hockey table for the rec room up at the cabin. I'm willing to spend $400-700 for a floor mounted unit. I need a recommendation from anyone who may have one. I've tried to "crack" the air hockey forums and it is like selling your soul to the devil. Admittedly, I have only "lurked" on one forum but, as with video game forums, the posters appear to have a vocabulary which is restricted to words having no more than one syllable and four letters. Unfortunately, I can use and peruse this type of communication but I am trying to quit. My grandson is close to talking and I have been instructed that foul language is unacceptable. That's fine with me. It's just due to laziness or stupidity anyway. I'll accept either definition in reference to myself.

Does anyone have any recommendations or links so that I can get the best "tool" for my dollar?

Sorry for the rant but I have become extremely "vexed" over the last three or four hours of searching.

Dale T.

[Tim Morton]

Very timely topic Dale, I am just finishing up my basement and am thinking about treating myself to this...
http://www.gametablesusa.com/Pockey_2N1_Black.html

It may not be the best of either table....but how cool would it be to have both in one footprint? I just would want to see it and touch it to see if it feels nice.

[Charles McKinley]

Hi Dale,

Go check out the tables that are at the bars or arcades in your area and ask the managers Which one they think hold up best or who their suppliers are and go from there.

Or just switch the air direction on the down draft table.

[markus shaffer]

Dale,

Charles has the right idea.. Go look at tables that are either in bars or arcades.. These are usually the best and built to withstand drunks and teenagers.. But still do your research from there. I've spent a lot of time over the years playing foosball in bars and I can tell you the difference in the quality of tables can be astounding.. I would imagine that air hockey tables also can have pretty large differences from the low to high end.. To give you an idea of a good quality foosball table that is comparable to what we play in the bars here, a home version is about $1500. Same table but minus the coin-op mechanism.. They are available for cheaper occasionally, but not often.. I would say look into places that sell or rent games to arcades. Look into commercial machines and then try to find a clean used one.. Coin-op machines can be set to work without the coin op mechanism.. If that's not in your price range, then look into home models..

Here's a link where you might start..

http://www.bradydist.com/product_lis...CID=Air+Hockey


-Markus

[Bruce Shiverdecker]

I was thinking that making the table might be a neat (did I really type NEAT? boy am I gettin' OLD!) project. You can make it to your specifications.

Bruce

[Matt Allan]

Very timely topic Dale, I am just finishing up my basement and am thinking about treating myself to this...
http://www.gametablesusa.com/Pockey_2N1_Black.html

It may not be the best of either table....but how cool would it be to have both in one footprint? I just would want to see it and touch it to see if it feels nice.

Tim,

If you enjoy playing pool my advice would be that you might want to stay away from a pool table like that. Although the idea is very cool, there is a lot of setup in a decent pool table. I have a Brunswick pool table, in my family room actually.. BTW, I was single when I moved into my house if you didn't guess

Anyway, unless you really just want to bang around some balls every now and then a small table that flips is not going to give you a good surface to play pool. Just a hair off and it ruins the whole game, and anything that rotates like that is going to be more than a hair off without fine tuning it, at least I would think so. I've been wrong before It took about an hour for mine to be setup, that's just putting down the slates and making it all perfectly level.

Not trying to bring you down, if its just to play occasionally and you don't mind that much it would be great fun.. Most likely if you start to get into it you will get annoyed quickly at a table that isn't setup correctly though..

Just trying to help

[Jack Hogoboom]

Tim,

I bought that combo table last Xmas. It is great for what it is. My kids and I have had a ball with it. However, it is tough to keep the pool table level, especially if you flip it over. The air hockey works great. A terrific deal for the money. I would definitely buy it again.

Jack

[Allan Johanson]

I bought a nice one from Costco about a year ago for $300 Canadian. It's very large at 4' x 7' and has 4 pushers with 4 pucks (2 x 2 sizes). Manual and electronic scoring. Quite sturdy for particleboard too.

It probably doesn't compare to a "professional" unit, but for home use it's better than the junk you see at Wal-Mart, etc.

Cheers,

Allan

[Dale Thompson]

Gentlemen,
Thank you very much for your inputs. I am checking out the links and plan to visit a local "Arcade Dealer" tomorrow. This is a small town area so there is only one. I don't think that they sell to walk-ins but I hope that they will let me "pick their brains".

The bars that I frequent don't have air hockey. We old codgers work up a sweat just pushing checkers from one square to another. When a "jump" or a "king me" situation happens, it takes three of us to lift the checker. I want the air hockey table so that I can turn back the clock a couple of weeks to when I looked like "The Governator".

Thanks again.

Dale T.