Griggsville hand crafts custom pool tables
GRIGGSVILLE -- Her name is Angelina. She's a sleek, sturdy girl with Italian features and old-world flair. Treat her well, and she'll stick around for decades. You just need up to $12,000 and a place to showcase her. And, perhaps, an appreciation for billiards.
Not everyone's basement, or pocketbook, can accommodate one of Andy Dugan's handcrafted, custom pool tables, but the 8- and 9-foot-long beauties that the Griggsville-based cabinet maker has created are a sight to behold and worth every penny to those who appreciate the sturdier construction of antique pool tables paired with the modern innovations of today's styles.
Dugan has crafted just five pool tables since he dipped his toe into the business about six years ago.
His tables are constructed of quarter-sawn white oak, which adds to the old-world feel of the tables and keeps it from warping or bowing. The six sturdy legs on the Angelina style, of which he's most fond, are built with a 4-degree taper and constructed of more than 20 pieces of wood fit together with cope-and-pattern construction, much like a paneled cabinet would be. More than 200 solid-surface inlays decorate the base and rail.
It's a far cry from the smaller, inexpensive "bar boxes" found in your local tavern, Dugan said.
"This is how they used to be built," he said. "We took an old pattern and added new technology to it. Mostly, the newer tables are built with profit in mind, rather than with the connecting beams on the underside like they used to be."
The materials to create the structure are the best Dugan could find. That includes 1ˆ¼-inch-thick Italian slate beneath green Simonis cloth for a smooth playing surface, Bubinga or Rosewood for the rail, German rubber and high-end leather pockets.
"If you're going to get that much money out of a table," he said, "it better have the best stuff on it."
A semiserious pool player for the past few years, Dugan didn't intend to get into the pool-table business, and technically, still hasn't. He hasn't advertised beyond posting photographs on his Web page (www.andydugan.com), and doesn't plan to do much else.
Because of the time and energy it takes to create his tables about 300 man-hours per table he has kept it to a sideline job that he pursues when he's not busy building and fitting custom cabinetry.
"This is not the main part of my business, so itsomething I can just crank out," he said. "But if I could sell one here or there, I'll keep building some."Two of his tables have been sold by an acquaintance, Bill Young, who runs a billiards store in Quincy.The third table went to Dennis Lister of Springfield, who was related to Dugan by marriage at one time.Every table Dugan creates is one-of-a-kind, though he said his preference for the Angelina will likely influence future table designs.Lister's table sits in his basement and remains covered unless it's being used. When Lister, an insurance broker who grew up in Griggsville, tells visitors who compliment the table that it was built in someone's garage, most are skeptical until he pulls up Dugan's Web page, he said."You aren't going to go to a billiards store in Springfield and find a pool table like that," Lister said. "When you look at it, it just looks nice. the quality, the workmanship you don't see that in stores where they all kind of look cookie-cutter. You can tell he put time and energy into making it just right."Dugan's tables range from $6,000 for tables with fewer inlays and precision work, up to $12,000.