I got myself into some trouble the other month , when I was asked to quote for a small dining billiard table .
the lady in question was asking my availability and cost quote in renovating the playing area of a 6ft Riley dining billiard table .
I went into great detail of informing the future client that cost was the same labour rate as a full size snooker table .
only the materials used which would be around 1/3rd of the price was the only saving on price .
I also pointed out I was not available for another 8 weeks !
this promted my future client to leave me an unnecessary bad feedback on my yell saying I was rude to her ? ( yellow pages ) which I had removed as it was totally untrue in what she was making out that I had stated to her , I still have the emails sent and received to prove this .
I gave her a full break down of what it would cost and stated many fitters would not work on these table and avoid them , I take them on now and again but not in great numbers , but I did admit that I would rather work on 9ft to full size tables and had stated this on my web site in the past and was there for all to read , these small tables where very fiddly to work on and can cause problems . But I could still do the work but not for another 8 weeks .
Just to show what sort of problems these small tables throw at you , here is an example that I am working on at the moment .
rock hard crumbling rubber on this 7ft version , old 5/8th flat laminated rubber circa 1910 to 1920 .
I would have to remove the rubber and rebate the block to take 5/8th by 5/8th L shape rubber which would give a much better bounce .
as you can see it does not fall off , it was stuck on with animal glue and took me 4 hours to get all 6 cushions stripped of the old rubber alone .
my method of removing the old rock hard crumbling laminated rubber , and inch at a time taking care not to damage the rebate of the wood block .
I did try steaming them to try and soften the glue this made it worse so gave up and went back to levering them off 1 inch at a time .
the rebate cleaned up , this is OK for the depth of the 5/8th by 1/4 inch rubber but not the height of the rebate , so I had to hand plane each cushion .
I had to take off another 1/4 of an inch from the shelf of this rebate to fit the new L shape rubber .
also some nails where in the way and had to be removed otherwise it would ruin my rebate plane .
with the rebate taken down a bit more , this made sure the new 5/8th L shape rubber had a good shelf to sit on before glueing into place .
and because I had to remove some nails in the block , I made sure the block was secured back against the main body of the cushion by screwing them on .
if you have loose blocks then the slip that secures the cushion cloth will be loose and the cloth will come out .
the new rubber fitted and the corner angle shaped and undercut .
the middle angle shaped and undercut , the cushion is now ready for recovering .
this whole process with me going up to chesterfield to strip the table down and bring the cushions in , stripping the old rubber of the blocks repairing preparing the rebate , and fitting the new rubber has taken two days so far .
in that time I could have re-rubber and re-covered plus fit nets and leathers to a full size table .
I still have another days work fitting bag nets and leathers , fitting the bed cloth with traveling back up to chesterfield , and fitting the very poor condition raise and fall lifters , which had to be welded to repair them . I will post more photo’s when I finish the table .
this is the second riley diner that I have renovated for this client , his first was a 5ft version which he was sold as a 6ft from an Ebay seller , he went out and bought the 7ft because of that mistake , but if anyone wants a nice 5ft version then get in touch and I will pass on your details to the Chesterfield client .
This was what I was trying to explain why fitters do not like working on such small tables , they can take a lot of valuable time away from our main work on 9ft to full size snooker tables .
we actually lose a whole day on these small tables if the condition is like this .
so you can see why I only do one now and again . unless of course it is in excellent condition and just requires a re-cover , then no problem , but get one like this 7ft crumbling hard rubber type and your in for a long hard job to rectify it .
