Category Archives: News

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 .

I have to travel to Wales on Monday morning and will be staying over for a night so will not be able to look at the PC to answer any Emails until Wednesday the 20th of August  .
I am setting up a nice Burroughs and watts full size snooker table and also re-covering it in the best Strachan 6811 gold tournament 30 oz cloth , we always show our clients the stamp of the cloth on every fitting.
thus you can be confident that GCL Billiards do not fit lower quality cloths.
Unlike some re-covers we have come across in the past we value our Reputation more than a few extra £s profit from fitting lower quality cloths and charging for the high quality .
did you know there is only around £18 difference between the Gold  tournament and the Silver club cloth ! you can tell the difference

Today we have been collecting a Full size snooker table from Litchfield from a town house in the ground’s of Litchfield Cathedral .
I have worked on this table before when we first installed it in a house in the village of Somersal Herbert near Uttoxeter in 1987 for Mr smith who owned a very large Country timber framed Elizabethan  house that was built in 1564  . and we have moved the table a couple of time’s since then to other properties for Mr & Mrs Smith.
I was contacted by Mrs Lesley Smith to try and sell the table for her as Mr Smith had sadly passed away some years back .
After a Free advert was placed on GCL Billiards web site , we had one enquiry about the table , we passed on the details to Lesley,  and I am pleased to say the Buying client ( Adrian ) agreed to buy the table and may I say he got a very good deal and got the table at a ridicules  low price , which is all down to the current market for full size snooker tables of supply and demand , demand is low , and supply is flooded with second hand tables  .
The high prices for tables in the boom years of snooker which where the 1980’s are now a thing of the past , if time is on your side you may get a reasonable price if you require the table out quicker then expect any offers you can take.
and time was more important than price on this particular sale.
When we started to dismantle the table we found it had the 2.5 inch thick slates on which I forgot about , this table was modelled on a table used in a billiards championship in 1903 and is called the Roberts Table .
A name of the famous Billiard player of the Day .
Take a look at the following photo’s to see the quality of this fine billiard table made by Burroughs and watts around the turn of the Century circa 1903/1910

You may be mistaken that the second slate has a crack running through it , but this is just a marble grain running through the slate and is normal to see this on many tables we take apart
the upper photo’s are the table in the room at Litchfield and being dismantled . as you can see it has the upgraded Steel Block cushions , a new type of solid cushion invented in 1896 and patented by Burroughs and watts .
the slate is extremely thick and heavy , we had to trolley the five sections of slate to the 5 steps outside and slide them down on cardboard and plywood to the pavement as they where too thick for our custom made slate slide .

The van looking rather low on it’s suspension due to the extremely heavy slates , I can honestly say this is the thickest slate I have ever handled in nearly 40 years as a Billiards fitter.
the slates came from the door opening on the left of the first photo and down those steps , there where only two of us to manhandle these monster slates out of the building and onto the van , lucky for us the offer of an  extra pair of hands at the storage unloading part was most gratefully taken later on in the day .

One out one in , we unloaded the table at our storage partner’s premises , Jonhills Removals of Nottingham have nice Dry warm storage which is ideal for storing wooden items that may absorb moisture if not stored correctly
In fact next to the slates there is a Grand Piano in storage that has been here for around 4 years  , Jonills Removals are experts at dry storage of your prized possessions and that’s why we use them .
No damp low price premises for storing our clients tables . when we can just refer them to Jonhills Removals !
we do not aim to make any money from storage, the price you pay for storage is direct to jonhills with no middle men fees added.
We can also refer Jonills to any customer as good reliable household removers.
We had another table in storage for a client that is being delivered to south of London on Friday so took the opportunity of unloading this heavy monster of a table and then loading a more lightweight 2 inch Italian slated modern table on the van ready for Friday .
So a very productive Day for us a table brought into storage for a couple of months and one we have had in storage for 11 weeks being re-loaded onto the van ready for installation this Friday .
but I know my back is now going to suffer from lifting this heavy table , I have informed the new owner of just how heavy these slates are for just two men to handle , and I am happy to say he says he will provide a little extra help at the installing process in around 2 months time .

Above cartoon of how my arms felt today after lifting these heavy slates.

back pain is a common problem with billiards fitters , so it baffles me why snooker players sometimes suffer from it by just laying or bending over on the table , They should try lifting one then they will know what back pain is .
here is a link to snooker players who have stopped playing or even retired due to back pain http://www.worldsnooker.com/page/NewsArticles/0,,13165~3825629,00.html

Today I was at a club Re-covering two 7×4 supreme winner tables , in the same club there was a 9ft American Sam K steel pool table that was also being dismantled by another Firm From Birmingham by the sound of their accents .
the fitters arrived to take this table out just as I was gluing the slate beds of the two UK supreme pool tables .
One of the fitters started laughing and pointing at me saying I should be using spray on Glue , little did they know that the owner who was stood next to them  was not amused by this , as I had shown him the pitfalls of Gluing pool cloth on with spray on Glue many years ago and that’s why he use’s me to do his work  , he quickly shut the fitter up when he told them he did not like his tables being re-covered by fitters using spray on glue and also informed them that the fitter they where laughing at for using a comb to spread a contact adhesive glue on had nearly 40 year experience in  the trade as a fully time served Billiards fitter.
And here are my reason’s that I do not use spray on Glue for all you so called billiard fitters and pool table Re-covers out there .

Photo 1 , a typical spray on glue , note the build up of overspray , this overspray prevents a ball rolling true down the side cushions , in my opinion spray on Glue should not be used for re-covering , it is used in the factory when the table is new , but after this any re-covering should have combed on Contact adhesive .
Even from new , you can see a problem of overspray from this Factory first re-cover of Brand new slate when using spray on glue , unless you cover all the area’s you will get overspray .
Note the thick line around 6 inch down the slate going  across the slate , the ball was rolling off this , so we where asked to strip the table to find out what was under the cloth .take a look at how clean the table is inside on the ball rails , this table was less than a week on site from new .

Below , Here is a slate that I have started to clean the overspray off  , note the date 12 dec 2012 , again the ball was stopping on a slow shot into this pocket due to the bad over spraying of thick spray on glue that the fitter has no control over , by using a spreader the fitter puts the glue exactly where he wants it to go on the edge and on the upper part that is under the cushion and not in the play area of the table , no build up of glue to make the ball wander off , and no complaints about the table rolling off .

Now I could have made a scene and had a go back at these fitters , but I thought no , they are only saying this because they have not thought it out , and was most probably taught to re-cover pool tables with spray on Glue which is ok for Car Carpets or sound deadening but should not be used anywhere near the playing surface of a Cue sports table .
I used to buy cloth in a kit that came with a set of balls , a 7×4 bed and cushion kit , a triangle , 12 chalks  , a brush , a tin of cloth cleaner spray on type , and a tin of that spray on Glue .
I now have around 50 tins of spray on glue never used and in one box , if any of these fitters wants to buy these off me they can have at £2 a tin , Because it has no use for anything I do in the billiards / Snooker and pool trade. I only bought these kit because of the other items I could use like balls and brush , the cloth cleaner too . the spray on glue  was never used .
It is messy to use , it will not grab well and has been known for the cloth to become unstuck as the fitter is walking out the door . and I have seen some very nasty recover work by fitters who have got overspray not only on the slates playing surface but in the ball runners and inside the table , also all over the coin mech and tipping ball mechanisms .

this is how I do all my Pool table re-covers , Note no glue overspray !
glue is applied to edge of slate 1/2 inch on top and side edge but not on top of pocket opening .
it is also applied by hand comb spreader around pocket falls and under pocket falls .
Old cloth is put over the new cloth to protect it as we have to glue the underside of the cloth


and another example progress of work when gluing and finished table

we also clean out the tables we are working on , cleaning all grease and sweat muck wax off all moving parts and ball runs and side tray

cleaning a Super league tables ball runs , using a dish wash brush and plenty of washing up liquid and hot water .

this is what I was removing , idle Fitters who leave this to build up , all tables should be cleaned inside making sure all the balls are running smooth over the ball runs and side trays , when a ball rolls over this it picks up dirt and grease off these dirty ball rails , it then deposits the grease on cushion facings and other balls  and all over that nice new cloth you have just had fitted at great expense !

this is another bad example of spray on Glue !

and this is how I get rid of it , Acetone and elbow grease .

A clean set of ball runners under the slate , it appears that many fitters rely on the What the Eye cannot see
At GCL Billiards we do not leave anything to chance , we protect our reputation as a Firm that can carry out Re-covering on any Cue sports table in a proper manner , making sure the table performs to it’s best , next time you see a pool table fitter using spray on Glue point him to this Write up on my web site , I would like all fitters to see this .
and the moral of this story is ,

and Why do Fitter’s use this spray on Glue …..SPEED !…….. They want to do as many re-covers in a day and they are not too fussed in how they go about this .

so What is best for Gluing a cue sports table slate bed , Spray on Glue or Spread on contact adhesive ?