Category Archives: News

We have just completed some more work for Butlins in Skegness
this time we where working in the Green Baize , they have 16 Full size tables located in this room and all require some work on a rotating basis , they also have two table tennis tables and 6 dart boards plus a lounge seating area .
This time we where called to recover some of the tables and also check round all the tables for nets /leathers and nuts and screws on ball rails and repair as necessary .

The snooker in the Green Baize at Skegness Butlins is Free to play  , so the tables do get some heavy traffic over the year and need regular visits from GCL billiards to maintain them
we also get called out for emergency repairs , some of the Butlins Clients do get a bit rough with the cloth and accidents do happen .
Butlins are a valued client of GCL billiards and we always try and be as competitive as possible , but never cut corners , we use the best cloth and materials to maintain them and still take our time to make sure the work is done to a professional standard .
We have a very good relationship with Rob , Albert and Wayne at Skegness , we like to think we are trusted to do good work and we strive to maintain this standard , that is why we get repeat work and will always regard Butlins as a main Client .
We know other firms are always contacting Butlins for the work at Skegness , we like to think we have proved our worth as good contractors and a feeling of mutual trust has emerged over the last couple of years between the Butlins management and GCL Billiards  .
We hope to continue our working relationship with Butlins for many years to come .

I have been over to a country village in Derbyshire to help the owner improve his potting skills on his refurbished Riley Aristocrat Steel Block table.  I found a few faults with the table on inspection and recommended the following:

Open up the 3.25 inch pockets to just under 3.5 inch at the fall.  These pocket openings were far too tight and reminded me of the old billiard tables size of 3.25 inch pockets of Joe Davis’ era of the early 1930’s.

I also found one cushion bolt snapped into the slate and the level was not good enough.

Also they had fitted Hainsworth Smart cloth and the owner was complaining of very slow table cloth speed.  Not surprising it is was a little slow around the spot end as the end cloth was not tacked down for 2 feet.

The cloth looked a bit rough and the owner did iron this on a regular basis.  I recommended Strachan 6811 Tournament 30 oz.

So I got to work opening the pockets up on strip down, slicing off a fair amount of rubber in the pocket openings to my template standard fit.  These old Templates are not the current type as used by World Snooker but they are as near as you can get.  Apparently normal billiard fitters are not allowed to own a set of current templates.  So I used the old ones as a guide and found them to be just under 3.5 inch when covered in cloth at the fall.

A painted silver riley Aristocrat with cloth off.  Note just one bolt in corner leg.  I think this is a licensed copy of a UK made Aristocrat which I have noted have two bolts in the frame at the corner legs.
1 and 3/4 inch Italian slate

I always like to show my clients that I use the best Strachan 6811 grade Tournament 30 oz cloth , the embroidered writing with blue lines confirms this and also the transfer every 10ft on the underside of the cloth also confirms type of cloth and the weight  standard . Club 6811 has two red lines this higher grade tournament has two blue lines .
This cloth replaced the lower grade Hainsworth smart which was a bit too thick and the nap was not as fine as this 6811 T .

the templates used and the size of the pocket opening at the slate fall is a shade under 3.5 inch , with the cushions being steel block the rubber starts to open back up after the slate fall , normal older table cushions like the old Riley imperials have a tendency to close up to by a 1/4 of an inch as the rubber bends round into  into the pocket fall . some thing that Snooker players cannot understand and ask for the pockets to be opened up on normal cushions and I have to explain why they cannot do this , unless they opt for replacement modern cushions or steel block .
any way the owner is delighted with all his corner pockets being at Match standard of a shade under 3.5 inch and that the middle pockets where also to template , these where slightly tight too before I started the work.
if the middle pocket openings had been correct and both side cushions pushed apart by a further 1/8th then the corner pockets would have been even tighter  at around 3.1/8th at the drop , I always start from the middle pockets when looking at the correct pocket openings in the corner , get the middles wrong and you also get the corners wrong on steel cushions,  so the first thing to check if corner pockets are tight or too generous on steel cushions is the pocket opening at the centre pockets which should be 3.3/8ths if cut correct .
once the centre pockets are correct then you can adjust the corners to template or just below 3.5 inch for Match sized pocket openings. you do this by cutting excess rubber off and then hand rasp and sanding rubber to form the correct angle using templates as a guide.
If you want club sized 3.5/8th or above sized pockets you just take more off but keep the same profile as the template curve .

the side cushions being positioned so that the centre pockets are correct with the centre templates fitted into the opening , the Cushion bolt photo is showing that I rub candle wax over each cushion bolt , the main culprit for snapped cushions bolts is grit into the bolt hole and also thread binding , a little candle wax rubbed onto the thread makes for a lubricated thread , you may ask why not use WD 40 or oil , well the oil and WD40 will leach into the slate and you will get stains in the cloth around each bolt stud insert inside the slate .
Never be tempted to use any oil based lubricant on bolts on a snooker table , once inside the slate the oil will be there forever and your table will be ruined especially if you have under slate heating as the heat will force the oil upwards .
and I have seen it done a few times. Use Candle wax it is much better suited for the job.
I have still to get the snapped cushion bolt out of the end slate , this will be done in 6 to 12 months time at Re-stretch , I will order a slate insert and new bolt for this .
This will be a tricky job as the end slate will have to be turned upside down and the old lug drilled out , the hole to be cleaned of all debris and new insert threaded lug put in and car body filled over to keep inside the slate , I put melted wax in the thread and on the bolt when putting the car body filler in to keep threads from getting fouled with the filler .

A photo showing that the corner pockets although not the official templates they are not far out as the two balls show they are not generous pocket openings

a white ball on it’s own for comparison

The finished table.  My client will add a few words about the work at  a later date.  He has yet to play on the table and he is installing three tube heaters under the table around 10 inches below the slate bed on a trip out thermostat set at 25 degrees Celsius.  When this work is done the table will be even faster.  He did comment that it was already faster than the Hainsworth smart cloth that was used when he bought the table from a firm in Leeds.

I was really shocked that they had left him with centre and corner pockets so tight.  I did not have my camera with me for the first part of the work otherwise I would have taken photos of the pocket openings.  As for the snapped cushion bolt, they also chiselled some of the frieze bolt hole away resulting in a missing frieze bolt too.  We will sort all this out on the re-stretch and make the frieze a much better fitting to steel cushions.

This is the third time I have visited this club to Re-cover their Full size snooker tables
they seem to suffer cushion cloth split after around 18 months of use and play for 6 months with split cushions ?   , and after some research I found it was down to meticulous cleaning  of the tables , not really  bad thing as it is very hard to fine people so enthusiastic to look after club tables .
Just a little guidance on the cloth splitting  , and how it was happening and a simple adjustment of less pressure to the brush at the cushion angle is all that is required

I have got to know the person who cleans the tables very well and I have given him a new Pure Bristle Brush to replace the badly worn one so that this prevents the wood of the brush making contact with the cloth on the cushions .
this and the sharp angle of rubber is what was the cause .
I have sanded the angles a little too , a slight rounding off of the sharp edge will also help prevent cloth splitting of cushions .

The main room , 5 Riley Imperial Snooker tables Circa 1930s ? with New Cushions fitted by Riley Services in the 1990’s
this Venue is very well used and believe it or not snooker is less than £2 per Hour . the table’s get re-covered every 2 years for that and I always replace on one of the tables with new nets and leathers every time I visit .
Thus the nets and leathers are also kept to a reasonable standard of maintenance .

I have been to a local youth club to re-cover their small 7ft American three section slate pool table in best quality Strachan super pro speed cloth .
Although just a youth club I still used the best cloth as I think this cloth is far better than the Euro American pool cloth and I charged the same price as the lower cloth so the youth club leaders where delighted with that .
Just a couple of Photo’s one before and one after .

the original cloth was the easy to rip type of cloth , and would not have been my recommendation to use in a youth club .
The new cloth is more durable and I think a far better colour than the off blue/green turquoise colour used before .

We will be closing for business on Friday the 28th August for 4 Days while we are out of the country.
For any Emails or telephones calls please wait until Tuesday the 2nd of September for a reply .
We are off to Amiens in France to watch Ice Hockey , our local Nottingham Panthers ice Hockey team are playing in a pre season Tournament there.
I have been watching the Nottingham Panthers since 1980 with my wife and 4 years later when we had our first Daughter we also took her just 4 months old and the second Daughter too they are now aged 29 and 23.

The last time we where over there I did not have time to look around Amiens as I divided my long weekend , with a work trip setting a table up in a farm house for two days and Ice Hockey for two days
This time around I will have more time to see the sites of Amiens , and I am hoping to see a few World War one memorial sites and battle fields if possible , take a look below at the river side Cafe’s and the Grand Notre Dam of Amiens
it is amazing that this monument of a Cathedral is still standing , look at the end of war photo taken in 1919 of what Amiens looked like after world war one , and then take into account another war to contend with as well .

We have just been to Wales to install a Burroughs and watts steel block table for our client Mark .
We delivered the table around February of this year and just stored on site , this was because the building that our client wanted was just in the planning stage  .
and he had seen the table at a very good price on Ebay , bought it and then asked Geoff at GCL billiards to move it for him from Clitheroe to North wales in Febuary 2013

I had mislaid my Camera the morning I was installing the table , and found it that night when I looked in my overnight bag.
Mark had let me stay at his house overnight as I wanted to complete the work over two days rather than rush fit it all in one day and get back home.
I started taking photo’s of the install way into the work , in fact after I had installed the table slates and levelling plus recovering of the cushions .
but Mark has taken some earlier photo’s which I will add into this report later on when he sends them to me.

the next day I ironed the table’s new cloth and found that overnight that  a slate joint had settled down more , so I carefully un-tacked the one corner that was affected , put more car body filler over this bad joint and sanded it flat .
The slates from a previous fitting had been badly sanded when they had not got the table level , this removes slate that should not be removed , and when I got the table level , the slate joint which should have been perfect was actually out , so we had no choice but to feather fill it , as you can see above the filler is replaceing what has been wrongfully removed in the past .

a flat straight edge ruler used to make sure all is correct before refitting the cloth

The bed cloth re-tacked to the under slate linings , you may note that this table is in very good condition woodwork wise , the table had gone through a full renovation in it’s recent past history .

The finished table 0.0 level , this table really looks the part in our clients new Games Room which is as big as  an average detached Bungalow . having a large toilet area and also a utility area for the house washing machine and laundry room

Extremely tight pockets a fraction under 3.5 inch make this table a professional standard table

Mark is very happy with the way we have installed his table , we used top quality Strachan 6811 tournament 30 oz cloth
The table levelled up very well . and was playing fast when we tried a few balls around the cushions.
Mark is going to have to wait a few more weeks though as arm is in a sling from a shoulder operation to rectify something with his arm socket from his youth .
I would like to thank Mark and his wife for putting me up overnight and for the nice meal and Breakfast , and the couple of pints we had down at the Cricket club
Rhos on Sea is a nice town and Mark lives just up from the sea front , if you look down his road you have a very nice view of it .

I am sure Mark will add a few more photo’s of his room and also the outside of the building , just to show how good a project this was .
Mark is also a member of the snooker forum and I am sure he will be doing his own write up for the members in there who are all avid readers of such projects , it’s where Mark got some idea’s from in the first place .
Mark has just sent me some more photo’s of this table install and some of the building in progress from footings to complete build.

Above , while I was waiting for Mark’s friends to appear to help lift the slates onto the frame , I started to recover the cushions to save time wasted just hanging around .
normally I would have done these cushions after the slate was put on the frame for a solid work bench of slate to work on . I just worked off two planks of wood to recover these cushions

above the Steel Block cushions that every one craves for .


The above photo’s from footings to completed Build , this Games room is large enough for a retired couple to live in .

We have just completed the install of a full size snooker table into a double Garage near London. You can get secure doors done for your garage in Surrey.
The table came from a large hotel conference centre some months back and we have been storing it for our client for around 11 weeks .

Above three photo’s of frame and slates being set up in the Garage .

The bed cloth laid ready for tacking to slate linings and the Brand of cloth we recommend for top class play is Strachan 6811 tournament gold 30 0z

The finished table , the Karnehm and Hillman Buckingham model with tulip designed legs and scrolls on lower frame work , and buttons covering the bolt holes of the cushions and frame work .
These tables are very easy to work on , they are also good quality tables .
and one table I would recommend to anyone thinking of buying a modern type table .
this table came from the hotel below

the table is being used by our new clients son , to practice  and improve his game , and when we had finished he was on the table straight from the last tool box leaving the Garage and potting away like a Professional.
One to watch out for in the future , he also plays golf to the same standard .
we set out early to install this table leaving Nottingham at 6.30 am but we got stuck on the M25 for two hours coming home which spoilt our day getting back around 8pm

I was called by phone booking to re-cover and repair a coin mechanism of a winner supreme pool table local to me
This table was located in a post office sorting warehouse and is used 24 / 7 by different shift workers
so it has seen some real use over the years it has been in the place.
The last firm to re-cover it just bodged it , re-covering over three to four sets of previous recovers staples , the cushions where not really good but I had to recover them just for this last time .
Next time the table will be having new cushions or they may replace the whole table with a brand new one .
The following photo’s should show just how this table had seen abuse over the years from over use and from the previous firm who maintained it.

the first problem I had to overcome was not a faulty coin mechanism ,
as described to me over the phone , but a die cast part of the tipping tray , this had broken , my finger is pointing to it in the above photo.

The next photo above , shows me holding the die cast part ( which is the cue ball separator ) back into position that it should be  , this Alloy die cast part also had a hole for the end of the tip out tray to locate into .
without this being in the correct position the tray would not flip out the balls and the cue ball separator did not work .
The only way to repair was to totally replace , but because we do not carry this part around with us and we would have had to order it from the manufacturer taking around 4 days to get it ,  the following photo shows how we got around this

a small frame tie flat bar was used with two self tapping screws , believe it or not this repair is a solid permanent fix , and it preforms as good as new .
Now the shocking previous re-cover that another local firm had done , I have come across this firms previous bad workmanship before , and I am not impressed with any work they do .
this is not me saying this because they are in competition to me as they are also local to my area  , but because it is simply bad workmanship which I have to put right , but it also shows after completion of the job that my workmanship is top class , and my new client is over the moon with the work I carried out to rectify the previous bad  workmanship.

The slate before I stripped the old cloth off the previous recover cloth is hiding the shocking glue residue over many years of spray on glue applications

this is really bad , lumpy old spray on glue well within the ball playing area . this table is just in a canteen rest area , and not in a club where a pool team would play , just imagine the comments from the pool players when a ball rolled down a side cushion was rolling all over the place because this is under the cloth !

the whole slate showing the area of spray on glue that the previous firm had used , I tried to get as much glue off using acetone and sanding down any rough area’s I did improve it , but it will take a good half a gallon of paint stripper to get this  old glue off .

This is how a slate should look with no glue on any playing surface , I put all my cloth’s on with contact adhesive , spread by comb spreader direct to the area that is under the cushion and on the side of the slate , at no point do I build up glue under the cloth where a ball has to roll within the confines of the games playing area .
this is one reason why so many clubs and pubs with top players and decent high standard players use GCL billiards to re-cover their tables.

the finished table after a GCL billiards re-cover , as you can see the outer cabinet has also had some wear and tear with the melamine pealing off from the end cushion surround .
I also fitted 6 new ball rail runners to this table ,as the old one’s where falling apart .
I like to think that GCL Billiards brought this table back to life from a scrapper to a table that can now be played to a decent standard .