Category Archives: News

Has your precious table been affected by flooding in the last few  weeks of downpours ?
We have experience of dismantling and taking off site for store and refurb of snooker and pool tables that have been affected by water or smoke damage .

this clients rear Garden was flooding and we where sent for URGENTLY , to dismantle the Full size snooker table that would have been affected ,
But we were quick to remove it off the flooding site before serious damage could be done

As you can see it was almost there , right up to the base of the doorway to the Garden snooker room .
Pumps were brought in to get it to back down , and we dismantled the table and took it away , the water had just touched the first two legs and the carpet was sodden .
We were just in time .

The table before the flood

The table after the flood , set back up , cloth replaced due to damp conditions it shrunk being 100% wool it had to be replaced under Insurance claim .
We deal direct with Insurance company if required , giving quote to remove and deliver back to site and set back up , plus any re-cloth work
This room after drying out which took weeks , also had to have new Carpets , and new skirting and repainted .

Although I do say East midlands we also do other parts of the UK ,but we are dropping the far reach areas of the UK due to time scale and costs .
Unless the client covers those extra days costs of traveling and B&B .

I would say after retirement and closures of billiard businesses  in our area  there are now around only two ( MAYBE only ONE  fully qualified Billiard fitter  ) still operating and based within our area of Derby Nottingham and Lincoln area known as the EAST MIDLANDS .
these are proper time served Billiard table fitters with at least 30 year experience and in our case over 40 years personal experience of our main and only time served fitter  .
Be very wary of none skilled people doing this work , if they cannot put the table back up and have to call in a professional fitter as a sub contractor then why not deal direct with the experienced time served Billiards  fitter in the first place .
The none semi skilled person will not have the proper experience or Insurance cover that GCL billiards carry .
Call Geoff Large at GCL billiards for a quote , we have a full range of equipment to move tables and also a new van every 4 years .
so you can be pretty sure your table will arrive for installation .

This is typical of what we do , store on site in a garage does not take up much space
always stand slates upright leaning the back edge towards the wall , like an upright door , this will limit any chipping out of face end joint edges .
all bolts and screws to be boxed .

We also offer a bubble wrapping service .
Above our van properly loaded for even weight distribution .

A blanket wrapped table , loaded for safe transport .
We know what we are doing with over 40 years personal experience Geoff Large is a fully time served billiards fitter .
trained down from fitter to fitter since 1976  when  he first started in the billiards industry .

and you can be sure the table will be put back together professionally and ready for play .
We do not do much table moving nowadays , most of our time is spent maintaining and re-clothing , re-rubbering , new nets and leathers .
but when we get a table move , you can be sure we know how to go about it .
and we are fully equipped to do this , although we do prefer Ground floor only locations though due to our age now  .
But we will access any upstairs work before we commit to any upstair work  , but it may be that more local labour is required to get the heavy slates up or downstairs .
BELOW TYPICAL REBUILD AND HOW I GO ABOUT IT

FRAME UP AND ROUGH LEVEL

SLATES ABOUT TO GO ON

POSITION OF SLATES TAKEN FROM MIDDLE SLATE

FILLING IN SLATE JOINTS

SMOOTHING OUT SLATE JOINTS

AGAIN CHECK LEVEL

REFIT OR FIT NEW CLOTH BED CLOTH

ALWAYS TACK BED CLOTH ON

LEVELING TOE PIECES

TYPICAL AFTER CARE KIT OF IRON & PURE BRISTLE BRUSH

FINISHED SET UP , THIS ONE IN FRANCE .

NOT MY CUP OF TEA BUT THE CLIENTS CHOICE OF COLOUR

WE ALSO RELOCATE AMERICAN POOL TABLES

and Dining billiard tables

Call Geoff Large for further details of relocating snooker tables .
or any other work you may require .

I will be away from phones due to working inside metal building no signal to mobile and Home phone is not manned for business replies .
Also no emails will be answered until Friday evening 14th of June .
Phone signal at Butlins is not very good on O2 .
Especially in metal clad buildings where we are working in .

We have  a large job in Re-covering a few Snooker tables and re-siting and setting back up an american pool table .

I am sorry  if you are trying to reach me , maybe a text message will get through later in the day if you require urgent assistance or inquiry  .

I have been asked to visit a client near Northampton .
I was recommended to this client from one of my regular clients in the same area .

The main problem was this badly cracked bolt hole , a bolt lug had been forced and spun around inside the slate and shattered this bolt hole .
not a lot we could do with this , if I had tried to mess with it we could have made it much worse , so in this scenario it was better to leave the bolt out of the table .
the cushions where made from very heavy Cuban Mahogany and weighed as much as steel cushions so the bounce would not be affected by leaving one bolt out of the cushion .

the hairline  crack had also spread above the slate bed along the dotted lines and the first slate joint was raised slightly , this could be frost damage if the slate was stored outside in winter .
My solution to the raised joint was not to mess with the cracked slate or disturb it , just in case it just fell apart , and made matters worse
The joint that was bad could be felt when ironing the table , so I filled all slate joints and feathered this joint in with soft sand car body filler , result is no bad joint anymore .

now one other problem that is is very noticable on old burroughs and watts tables is the centre pocket bounce back of ball back onto the table ,
after hitting the pocket plate leather , this is because there is very little distance between the bolted cushion pocket plate and the slate fall .
and is a very common problem on old B&W tables that a lot of people have an issue with .
on this table the slate fall did not align to the nose of the cushion so I was able to add a further 1/8th of slate   fall into the table by rasping the slate away , on this table all 4 corners had already been done like this , but they did not touch the middle slate falls , now the owner has a bit more distance to the pocket plate .
note that this slate also has an airline crack in it , I have filled it with isopan car body filler soft sand type , just in case it could show  through the cloth .
I think at some point the table slates has had some rough handling or maybe frost damage if slate was wet and stored outside . frost gets into slight hairline cracks and freezes resulting in expanding and making the crack worse .
But all is ok now .

cushions where made from a very heavy Cuban Mahogany , very rare to find this and a costly improvement from standard mahogany when new  .
they will bounce as good as Steel cushions , they are that heavy .
A previous fitter had fitted Barton White rubber to this table in the past , I would have used northern Rubber myself .
but the ball bounce was very good from them , so they are OK .

The Finished table , Re-cloth in Strachan 6811 tournament 30 oz , my client had a Hainsworth match cloth fitted  on it last time , but he was not happy with it , the fibers of the cloth was shedding and the white balls was covered in fibres .

The lighting shade is due to be replaced for twin tube high frequency white light units  , but these old metal shades where the rolls royce of billiard shades back in the day .
The Hartley Engineering metal shade , to the exact requirements of Joe Davies spec .
not many of these around anymore as they often get scrapped for modern lighting .
Modern lighting is the way to go , the game is so much better with white light high frequency tube lights or LED lighting panels .

and I got excellent recommendation from this client , thank you Dave

Yes Geoff arrived 10:30 and was still working at 5 o’clock no 2 hour quickly with this man, all the table problems sorted in a very high professional high standard workmanship to match. I was over the moon with the finished job, most highly recommended

I will not be available to answer any phone calls or emails until next tuesday
I have a very busy weekend ahead of me and therefore cannot attend to the firms phones or PC.

I have been over to Beeston the next main town from me to re-cloth a table I put in two years ago at the start of this man cave , I also supplied the supreme Prince pool table to him as well as the Riley Aristocrat pro steel cushioned  full size snooker table , located through our private sales program and this web site  .

This full size  table is located in a warehouse upper floor area where the owner has created a very enviable Man cave ,
together with Pool table air hockey football table and table tennis table ,  a gym weights  , video machines with twin seats pinball , table tennis and a very impressive golf range video range game using real clubs and balls .

I am not going to say where the warehouse is located for security and customer client confidentiality .

but just look at the photo’s who would not want something like this .
First of all how the table was re-clothed

Steel cushions on the this top of the range riley Aristocrat , cushions being stripped and re-clothed .

the bed cloth off to reveal the slate bed sections 5 in total , and a taster to the games my client has to choose from in his man cave is in the background .

cloth of choice for our client is the expensive top of the range Hainsworth match on the bed with Hainsworth smart on the cushions for best ware and tear .

not the best cloth to fit for inexperienced people you can rip it easy if you are not careful  ,
you have to be very careful especially around the centre slate falls and use G clamps on this cloth .

Bed cloth marked out with D and baulk line and spotted , Ironed and now the cushions being aligned back up before torque  tightening of bolts .

the finished table , level checked and one net replaced .

and just some photos of the other games on offer in this man cave .
a Genuine Brunswick Shuffleboard around 12 to 14 foot long , I did not measure it .

Sam Air Hockey table .

Sega multi game video in foreground , Pinball and twin race video games in corner

Football table

and an impressive Driving range with large video projector above .
Add to this a table tennis table and a 7ft pro series Supreme Prince pool table
and as you can see a really enviable Man Cave has been produced here by the owner .