We have completed a very painful installation in Croydon South London of which two visit’s was required to complete the work !
This table used to belong to an old client of mine Mr smith who had passed away and his Widow had sold it to my new client Adrian in Croydon .
This table is a very special table in that it was the Robsteve model billiard table of 1911 which was a facsimile ( exact copy ) of the Billiard table as used in the Roberts Steven’s billiards final of 1905 at Caxton Hall .
Burroughs and watts went on to make very few of these tables and they are very scarce , and you do not come across them often , they have unusual 2.5 inch thick slates when the norm would be 2 inch slates , Roberts insisted on this spec of extra thick slate .
this is a photo before I dismantled it for my new client Adrian , who purchased it from my old client Mrs Smith and was removed from a property in the grounds of Litchfield cathedral .
as you can see it was in very good condition apart from it requiring new rubber and and a re-cover in Strachan 6811 tournament cloth .
I found it very hard to load this table with just two of us and we had to bring it down some steps to the van , I was overloaded for the short trip back to Nottingham , and becuase of this i had to get Adrian to come up with another van to collect the table .
Part two of the deal was to go down to Croydon to install in Adrian’s Bungalow .
Now this is where it got tricky , Adrian had underpinned his bungalow and dug out for an entire basement to be built under the foundations of the old Bungalow , this was the whole floor which comprised of two new Bedrooms and the new Snooker room , with an upstairs loft conversion I was told it was the only three story Bungalow in South London !
Unloading some of the woodwork from my van , Adrian had already picked up the slates and part of the woodwork
this table was one that my van would be overloaded so best do things legally , and use two vans to transport it .
the slates where going to be man handled down a slope of boards , but after accessing the dangers of this I called it off and asked Adrian to get a Crane in , a builders lorry was used with HI HAB crane on it , they used straps and gently lifted each slate in the air and lowered it onto the boards and slid them down useing hydraulics , this light pit is 8ft deep , if we could not hold the weight back then the two people at the bottom would be in Hospital or a morgue .
The risk was just not worth it , and Adrian had waited two years for this table so another week or so was not going to be a problem and we managed to pull the work back in when I was down that way two weeks later.
In fact that weekend I dismantled a table and set it up in one day in Essex , then onto Adrian’s who had got the slate on the frame to finish this table off by 9.30 pm , then slept over at Adrians , and on way back called into Windsor to pick up a full size Karnehm and hilman table to bring back to Nottingham .
I had set the table frame up and leveled it ready for the slate to go on , and left Adrian a piano trolley to get the slates onto the table .
the slate positioned and level and filled in on the slate joints ready for sanding smooth as one bed .
as you can see this is extremely thick slate bed .
Myself fitting the wood cushion frieze over the steel cushions .
an imposing table made from the finest Cuban mahogany with thick chunky legs and steel cushions , this was the Rolls Royce of tables in 1911 .
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the finished table , all that Adrian has to do now is fit some decent lighting .
as the spot lights do not work very well , I have instructed him to get the twin tube office lighting
High frequency and twin whit light tubes , two units 1.5 metres long end to end will come out at 10 foot lighting
like these examples .
We got there in the end Adrian was very pleased that he finally got the table he bought two years ago set up in his dream Snooker room .
We do not often have to walk away from an installation , but the risk of injury could not be ignored .
