What is the “speed” of the cloth, and how do you measure it?
Here’s a good article from Joe Waldron on this topic, showing how to fabricate your own device to measure and compare cloth “speed.”
Related information concerning the effects of cloth “speed” on draw and drag shots can be found here.
For more information on the effects of various cloth conditions, see cloth effects.
from Bob Jewett (in AZB post):
It is also possible to measure the speed of a table with a stop watch. If you time a lag shot from far rail to stopping just before the near rail, the time in seconds squared times 2 gives you the reciprocal of the effective slope. So, 7 seconds for a lag to travel the length of the table gives:
7*7*2 = 98
slope = 1/98 = 1.0% more or less
On a carom table, it is not uncommon for a lag to take 10 seconds for the last lap of the lag:
10*10*1.8 = 180 (1.8 factor for a 10-foot table)
slope = 1/180 = 0.55%
Since most people can do lags and have stop watches or stop watch apps, this is a pretty simple and accurate way to measure table speed.
Also, if a video has a lag, you can pick the speed of the table off the time of the video.
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