Category Archives: News

Today I have been over to West Bridgeford Conservative club to re-cover table three .
I have a long standing relationship with this club and have been doing the re-covering of these tables for many years.
One thing that really stands out about these tables and that is , they are maintained to a high standard

There are three table’s that the club Brushes and irons several times a week to keep the speed of the table up .

Today table 3 had it’s every two year  re-cover done , all the tables now get re-covered every two years and stretched at 8 months
so each visit from now on will be one re-cover and one re-stretch and service the other table.

Many years ago with the old No 6 Strachan 360z  cloth the tables lasted many years , but in today’s thinner thickness of 6811 tournament cloth we advise every two years for a re-cover.
with many club’s local to this club closing down or reducing the tables numbers , the Conservative club is Nottingham East’s best kept secret .

Where have all the tables gone ?

The Embankment Club has just come down from 4 tables to just 1 table , and the local Rushcliffe arena are taking two tables out into storage for a new Arena to be built but that will take 2 years to build !
the local British legion closed down with two tables too , so the West Bridgeford Conservative club is the place to play Snooker , unless you want to walk into the center of Nottingham and play at the larger snooker club’s
Now I see many snooker venue’s around Nottingham and I must say this club really take care of their tables and it’s only £2 an hour to play ! But you have to join the club membership to play .

I am really busy again , it’s seems like it’s none stop , we have 2 tables to dismantle Bubble wrap and store , pool tables we have out on rental to re-cover , a large club in Derby has a substantial amount of work for me and so has another in Northampton
I also have to get a table ready for an exhibition for a visit by a professional  snooker player Ken Doherty at another local 5 table club .
add to this a large amount of small table work such as private houses with small snooker and pool tables to re-cover , a new client in the west midlands with two tables to re-cover out of three on site.
I also may have a Scotland visit just over the border in Kelso coming up in August ,
Yes we are really busy at the moment and long may this continue , years ago we used to get a lull in trade around summer time , but it has been constant for the last three years .
We are almost booked out to Mid August , we have dates available from mid August onward and all of September , But I am taking an holiday in October from 3rd to 12th .

We have been contacted to supply a pool table on free play for two weeks during the wheel chair open tennis championship.

http://www3.lta.org.uk/fans-major-events/British-Open-Wheelchair-Tennis-Championships/Home/

and also the following week for the Disabled and hard of hearing Tennis Championship also at Nottingham Tennis Center

http://www3.lta.org.uk/Tennis-Foundation/Tennis-for-Disabled-People/Hearing-Impaired-Tennis/World-Deaf-Tennis-Championships-2015/

We have supplied  a table we where taking out of one of our rental pub’s that was local , this table went straight into the The Nottingham Tennis Center direct from site and will be left there until the 26th of July when the second tournament finishes.
We put the coin op onto FREE play for these two weeks.

The table’s we hire out are Supreme Winner latest edition as used by leading pool tournaments.
If you require a pool table for long term hire and you are a Pub Landlord local to Nottingham and Derby where we operate our pool table hire , then please get in touch for our hire rates.
if you require a table local for a short period this can be a little expensive and as we have to pay for delivery and set up , and Dismantle removal and bring back into storage after the short term hire .
Long term hire starts from just £15 per week .
we only hire out short term if we have a table available from site ,sometimes they are all booked out , but please ask .

We have just dismantled two full size snooker tables at the embankment , one had been sold by the management , and the other was to be relocated in the basement sports room .
This was not an easy task as the stairs had a 180% bend half way down , we took two trolleys and 3 lifting straps for 6 men to lift the slate from the top of the stairs to the bottom .
The management supplied 4 strong builders who where already on site and who had themselves dismantled two of the 4 tables and scrapped them .
10 slates being out on the car park as we arrived .

Table no 2 Ready for dismantle with parts from other tables underneath that the builders took down .

Part dismantled , with the parts to the two scrapped 3 & 4 tables underneath , these where Nottingham made John Gent tables from circa 1900

Table fully dismantled and now taken away by Buyer , the table went for very little money . and what is left of the two other tables is scrap .

this was No 1 table it is now set back up in the Basement room , by GCL billiards . the table was made by E.J Riley and is a very common design made in their thousands over the years .

The old Snooker room , 4 tables that have been there for years , now top half of room is to be a cellar for beer and with new toilets,  and the area near the bar as a new Dining area .

The old Boots social club renamed the embankment has been frequented by many Billiard and Snooker players over the years , and I have personally been looking after the tables there for near on 35 years .
mainly for the firm I used to work for ,and for the last three years as GCL billiards .

I have been out to a Private house near Melton Mowbray today to dismantle a 9ft Titan snooker table
Our client bought the table Brand new 7 years ago and it has not been moved at all in that time.
The only reason it is being dismantled is because of a new Carpet going down and some plaster work to one wall .
Now I have seen some speed fitting cowboys in my time but lets just look at the photo’s to see what this fitter did wrong and what he missed out of the build .

All looks well from above during dismantle , this is a 5 section slate bed 9ft table by Titan of Liverpool and branded as a Titan table
I have worked on this design of table many times in 9ft and 10ft to full size table. I have seen identical tables from Riley and also imported chinese tables that look identical

Not long into the dismantle and I have found the first cowboy speed fitting attempt of stapled on cloth , Bed cloths on snooker tables should always be tacked on with 5/8th sized cloth tacks
note the screws sticking through the tack lining wood !

the reason those screws are showing through the wood of the tack lining  is because of the  very thin 3/8th inch thick board cladding wood used as a wood tack lining . tack linings are normally 5/8th by two inch .

cloth off and two slates removed and we find the most shocking part of this speed fitters work , NO CROSS MEMBER and NO center slate muntin’s

Looks like this fitter left the center cross member back at the warehouse , and just put the bolts in so the customer would not know the difference without looking upwards underneath he would never know.

All the slates off and you can now see the frame has no inner woodwork , this is very shoddy workmanship .

As an example this is a 8ft table with what should be in the center of the frame , a bolted in cross member and adjustable muntin’s
these support the slate and keep the frame solid and not rocking .
I would like to say I have never come across such shoddy work before , but I am afraid I have witnessed another table set up without these cross member’s or adjustable Muntin’s .
here is photo’s of that table that was set up without muntins but has the cross members  , also note it is the same type of table with those reeded legs

we are due to go back in a few weeks time to set the 9ft table back up. I will make a new center cross member and make new muntins plus fit 4 adjustable brackets .
Photo’s will follow when we carry this work out .
If you require quality workmanship when having a table set up without the risk parts deliberately missed out like this one or badly fitted slate tack linings and stapled on cloth,
as I say to all my clients and to the fitters who complete such shoddy work the Camera never lies.
and if I see this shoddy work I will expose it .
I would also like to say one of the cushions was very loose and the customer was complaining of a dead cushion rebound . we will of course always hand torque up bolts after using drill driver .

Today I returned a set of cushions that I had spliced a bit of wood on one cushion end to repair a large piece that had come out from a previous re-cover by another firm and a large tack that forced it out .
This was a table that had seen some serious play over the years in an Army Officers mess .
The Oak orme and sons table had splintery wood that was really bad .
So after splicing in the new bit of oak , I decided to help them out by giving the cushion capping three coats of varnish FREE of charge while I had them in my workshop  , I would have had to touch up the new spliced bit of oak so decided to give all the cushions three coats to seal in the flaking oak wood work and stop splinters getting into trousers when rubbed on the side of the table.
Now the Finnish is not top class because if they required a total re-polish of the cushions it would have cost them around £300 extra so free is free and I am sure they appreciated the gesture of three coats of ronseal satin-coat varnish
I just Dark oak stained and used wire wool to fine sand the varnish between coats , the grain was very coarse and it did the trick and sealed in the woodwork.

the square spliced bit of oak inlaid into the top capping of the end cushion, the previous fitter had used a large tack to tack the cloth to the end of this capping and had split the wood , I use very fine staples which do not damage the woodwork

this officers mess has two tables , the second one also requires a re-cover which I hope to get the work for later on if they like the work that I did to this table.

although I was working to a tight budget for this table , I managed to squeeze into the work a new set of leathers
The varnished wood is not my usual top quality re-polish but I only did this to seal the wood in and help them out , I had other work on so three quick coats of ronseal satin coat was all the time I could give to this job for FREE.

all set up level and ready for play

I have had to replace one cloth due to it being ripped and now another in the space of just a few days of the opening of this local club.
I did not carry out the re-covering of any of the tables in this establishment , but I have found two reasons why these cloths are very easy to rip while playing snooker
first reason , the tables where re-covered around 12 months ago way before the club actually re-opened, so are due for a re-stretch of bed cloth , the table cloths will slacken off over a 12 month time period and are due to be stretched .
but the other reason is more alarming in that the fitter who carried out the re-covering of these tables have not put enough tacks in ,
the spacing down the side of the tables are 10 to 12 inch apart which is shocking work and would cause the cloth to be slack from the first few days as the cloth will have not have enough tack down places to make sure the cloth stays tight ,
I am not going to name names of which firm carried out the re-covering 12 months ago , but here are a few photo’s of why the table cloths are slack and ripping easy from cue stabbing.

A photo taken from under the table , we found only a few tacks on the side of the cloth and these where spaced out 10 to 12 inch apart , the cloth would become very slack between these tacks

As can be seen I did this to every table and found the cloth to be alarmingly very slack to the touch , so much that if you rub your fingers down the cloth it rucks up in front of them as pictured in the photo.

This photo of one of the re-placed cloths , showing my tacks are anchoring the cloth down every 5 inch at least , in this case every 4 inch .

this is what will happen if a cloth is not tight enough , I know this can happen even on very tight cloths but it is very rare , tight cloths tend to just result in a cue stab
Slack cloths almost always end up with a L shape rip like this one
I am sorry to say for this club Manager who has successfully ran another club and also played snooker for many years , that the clubs tables are in need of every table cloth re-stretching ASAP
Without the table bed cloths being tightened back up due to not fitting tight enough by putting enough tacks in and also the time scale of re-cover to opening the club of 12 months , these snooker table’s are going to all end up with torn bed cloths.

We have re-visited the Baulkline snooker club just up the A50 from Derby
This time we re-covered the other table to bring it up to a good playing standard for a competition that they are running in July.

Myself stripping the cushions of old cloth and carefully removing the cloth retaining slips.

this two table venue is something different , rather than the noisy music and loud banter you get with multi tables clubs this is run on quietness being the main object ,
A more relaxed way to play snooker or billiards , the tables are bookable on line .
Very warm in winter the club has excellent heating system

The finished table , both tables have now been re-covered in Best West of England Strachan Tournament 30 oz cloth

Not many people know this , but it is recommended that you have the bed cloth re-stretched tight after 12 months of having a new cloth fitted.
the reason is to speed the table up as a tight cloth has extra speed over one that has slackened off a bit
the other reason is cue stabs can cause a L shape rip in slack cloth , the cue tip can dig in and ruck up loose cloth , tight cloth tends to glance a cue tip off with the only damage being done is some nap removal but no rips.
here is a table we have just re-tightened the cloth on after 12 months.

Can you spot the unusual design on the end cushions of this table ?
The answer is 8 bolts instead of 6 , not many of these tables around
the manufacturer Padmore’s of Birmingham used to state you get a better bounce from 8 bolted end cushion rather than the normal 6 bolted type.

Padmore’s are now incorporated into Thurston after Clare’s of Liverpool , Padmore’s of Birmingham and Thurston of London algimated ,
today they have used the oldest name within that group to trade under which is Thurston’s

This Full size snooker table is located in a village hall near Burton on Trent Staffordshire
by having the cloth re-tightened the table is now playing faster and the level was also checked and adjusted.