Category Archives: News

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 ?

Last week we visited an Higher learning institution that has two snooker tables that had the old tin metal lighting canopy .
these had years of nicotine on the underside and very poor low quality low wattage lighting bulbs , it was like playing in a cave under candlelight !
I recovered these tables last year and was due to go back and re-stretch the bed cloths , so took the opportunity to also fit two new sets of lighting for them

. 
Before they had these 1980s alloy shades with nicotine stains on the underside .

using the original hanging wires that where on the old shades we had these new high frequency units up very quick , they where prewired in the workshop and mounted onto metal U channelling to make one 10ft twin unit .

The lighting is now a lot brighter to play under , the costing for these two tables came to £600 for two table’s fitted , so £300 per table for each complete double unit table light delivered and fitted .
I also repaired one small cut around 1 inch in one bed cloth . and then checked the levels .

We are re-visiting clients who 12 months ago had a re-cover from GCL billiards
We are now re-stretching the bed cloths and then checking the level of the table , last week we visited two private houses with different Snooker rooms .
The first was a Log Cabin in the garden  of one house .

An internal measurement of 29ft by 17ft makes this log cabin not just a games room or man cave but also a place to relax in .
It stretches from around 12ft to spare at the bottom of the Garden to just 1 metre from the house at the other end , they do have a bit more Garden to the left side of this photo above.

A huge log cabin which I was informed cost around £6000 flat packed including base , by the owner.

The middle internal side strengthened walls  do encroach into the side of the table and a short cue is used at that point if it is an obstacle for cueing , a small price to pay to get a full size snooker table in . so we advised that the Baulk ( D end ) was placed at that end , and the business end black red etc kept free from obstruction .

the log cabin could not have the old coffin shade installed due to low roof level , but the new office type high frequency lighting is much better for it .
Our client was away in Germany when we did the re-stretch but his Partner let me in to do the work .
Our second job that day was a different type of table and room , also note the same type of High Frequency lighting above this table too !

After the log cabin with temperatures of 30C , it was nice to work in an Air conditioned room especially built for this Antique table.

I had a little problem with the level being out on this table due to settlement of the building , surprising the log cabin table had not moved out of level as much as this one
I spent over 1 hour levelling this table , and eventual got the result that I was after , the electronic level I used as well as the engineers metal level shows the spot on figure I was after , the table is 0.0 , place a £20 note under one end and it read 0.1 , this table is within the thickness of a £20 all over it’s slate bed , mostly 0.0 and only the odd place where it is 0.1 .
Now that’s being picky !

If you have a table that is playing slow , cloth can be moved by fingers bridging onto ball and is also out of level , then maybe you require a re–stretch of bed cloth service visit from GCL billiards