At the time i contacted them they were still in business and all I heard from them was the cusion rubber was not covered under their warranty. I tried contacting the company where I purchased my pool table from (i think they’re out of business now) but at the time they were located next to the 55 freeway in santa ana. Your right on the mark, my 3 year old American Heritage pool table had 2 “dead” bumpers. We can swap out your bad rubber for good rubber and get your table playing like new again.
Good pool table cushion rubber generally lasts 20-25 years, although some last longer. The telltale sign of a dead cushion is a “thud” noise on contact. It should make 3-4 cushion to cushion contacts before coming to rest. Don’t take off your cloth to see the color! You can test your cushions by rolling a ball firmly against a cushion on the short side. But, it is pink rather than amber or tan. You probably don’t know what color the rubber is, since your cloth covers it. The inferior cushion rubber is K-66 profile and most often pink in color. These are all nice, well built tables that just had poor quality rubber on the rails. We’ve even seen it on a few Beach Manufacturing and Golden West Pool Tables. We’ve seen a few different brands of pool tables that have cushion rubber issues, but at the top of the list are American Heritage Pool Tables and Artisan Pool Tables. But the truth is, if one rail has gone bad, the others are likely to follow suit shortly after.
There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason. It can affect only one or two cushions or all six. There are a few major pool table manufacturers that used a batch of cushion rubber that was inferior. Some were inexpensive to buy, but most weren’t. Recently, we have seen many pool tables less than 10 years old with bad cushion rubber. Cushion rubber is supposed to last like 20 years, right? What is going on!? But how can that be? The pool table is only 5 or 6 years old. It seems like the cushions are just not bouncing right. You can’t put your finger on it, but it just doesn’t play like it did when you bought it. You have a beautiful pool table, but something is just not right.