Just been over to south Yorkshire which is around 40 mile away from my base
the work over two days was to re-rubber with Northern rubber and then re-cover .
this 1880’s Burroughs and watts had at sometime had replacement cushions fitted in the 1990’s
the older cushions having those pre 1885 top plate pockets on .
I had stripped all the cushions back to the wood blocks which are rebated for the new rubber to fit on
I apply a thin coat of contact adhesive to the blocks .
The new Northern rubber ( Best in the world ) backs also have a thin layer of Contact adhesive applied
the previous rubber was not of good quality , the Black rubber is the Northern High Quality rubber the white is imported sub standard rubber .
look at the right side of this photo to see the white rubber had some rough cut undercut to the corner pocket opening , this should be smooth as you will see in photo of the finished black rubber 3 photos below
Sub standard cloth was also fitted by the last fitter see small transfer I took off old cloth , so not a good job , as you can see I replaced it with Genuine Strachan 6811 tournament 30 oz cloth
please note that when Strachan have any reject cloth they put a substandard transfer like the one above on the bed cloth and this is sold at a lower price to the fitter , always check your cloth as it is being fitted that is does not have sub standard written through it . GCL Billiards does not fit sub standard cloth .
The rubber has been attached to the cushion block and relief cut to allow me to trace around the corner template .
the corner after I have cut shaped and sanded plus hand rasped to form a good clean entry into the pocket
I pride myself as being one of the neatest fitters of rubber and shaping of pocket openings in the UK .
I come across a lot of rough undercut work and some terrible efforts of other fitters work.
I have never had any complaints to any re-rubbering work that I have carried out .
and in fact have had many compliments and referrals of tables playing much better after a re-rubber was carried out by Geoff Large at GCL billiards
template is a nice tight fit into corner openings
I checked the level to find it required a slight adjustment to the black spot end of the table to be lifted upwards
I then refilled the joints and sanded flush . The wine is not mine Honest !
the finished table from the Baulk D end , I was asked to source a Burroughs and watts cushion name plate to fit to these modern cushions ,
the only one I could track down was an Edwardian copper silver plate Steel cushion type,
you can see this attached to the end cushions slide in panel .
The table is at last finished with brand new Aramith tournament Champion balls lined up ready for my Clients Grandson
The shape of leg to this Burroughs and watts is called a Tulip leg
I must say I enjoyed myself working for this client , he makes a good cup of Yorkshire Gold tea , and we had some good banter
some thing to note about the table , the 5 section slates where thin 1 inch thick , I would date this table to early 1880’s as Horse and carts where replaced with motorized transport around the 1890’s the slate got thicker to 1.5 inch then to 2 inch nominal by 1896 to 1910 .
If you have a table that requires new cushion rubber like this one get in touch with Geoff at GCL billiards for a quote , you will find our price structure very fair and we use top quality UK made cloth and rubber too no imported rubbish , the only materials of this job to come from abroad where the balls which are Aramith from Belgium , if it was not for BCE selling the rights to Aramith in the 90’s for super crystalate balls and all the machinery that made them , then we would still have a UK made set of balls as an option .
