The last two days, Friday and Saturday, I have been working in a local club in Nottingham re-covering 2 full sized snooker tables. One is very interesting, being an oak carved scroll type Thurston table circa 1920 /30. The other a Riley Imperial also circa 1930s with new Riley Aristocrat standard cushions which they use as the match table.
Below a few photos of the carved oak Thurston table and two of the match table and pocket opening.
The carved oak Thurston table leg and side frame.
This club has plenty of cue room around the tables.
These highly carved cushion panels hide the cushion bolts and slide on and lock into place.
Below the match table.
The match table in this club has new Riley Aristocrat cushions which were fitted around 10 to 15 years ago. The original table is an oak Riley square leg Imperial with good 2 inch thick welsh slates. The pockets on this table are very generous, being 3 3/4 inches at the slate fall. This is a full 1/4 of an inch larger than the standard match size 3.5 inches at the fall.
The carved oak Thurston table has 3 5/8ths at the fall, 1/8th of an inch larger than standard match size.
3 3/4 inches at the fall pockets. I have fitted new nets and leathers, but I ran out of leathers for the oak carved table so I will call back and fit new ones at a later date.
I will also point out that the last fitter used a compressor stapler with 12mm staples which took an age to dig out. 6mm and 4mm infills would have done the job and made for an easy strip down, which is what I have done. I always do a job with the intenton that it is going to be me who has to strip down the table next time. Using smaller staples not only helps me to achieve this, but the blockwork that the cloth is stapled to also lasts longer when you do not have to dig the old staples out.
I have advised them to replace the light shades with the new High Frequency lighting (like the photo of some in a Derby club below) and they are looking into it.
