Thanks for the hints on how to do this. I elaborated a little on it trying to get rid of the TableColumn. I aldready had a subclass of DefaultTableCellRenderer doing some custom coloring in getTableCellRendererComponent(). I could extend this method for
doing the tooltip stuff - see this stripped down version:

public class TableCellRendererMy extends DefaultTableCellRenderer implements TableCellRenderer {

public Component getTableCellRendererComponent(JTable table, Object value, boolean isSelected, boolean hasFocus, int row, int column) {
super.getTableCellRendererComponent(table, value, isSelected, hasFocus, row, column);

double cellPrefWidth = getPreferredSize().getWidth();
double cellWidth= table.getCellRect(row, column, false).getWidth();

if (cellPrefWidth>cellWidth) {
try {
setToolTipText(String.valueOf(value));
} catch (Exception e) {
}
}

return this;
}
}

regerds,
stephan

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