We have had another insurance job come in due to flooding.
this is the second table in two months that has had to be dismantled while the room is dried out and fully redecorated .
this is normally around 2 to 3 months between the table being taken down to being reassembled back up .

I have worked on this table around 4 times in the past 5 years , I have re-covered it twice and re-stretched the bed cloth also opened pockets out
and replaced the Rubber , our client takes really good care of it and has it maintained regardless of cost .
it was no coincidence then that he contacted Geoff at GCL Billiards when he recently experienced the recent flooding in Gotham near Nottingham .
GCL Billiards are reputable insurance approved when it comes to Billiards Snooker and pool table removal or replacement due to unfortunate circumstances like a flood or fire .
Insurance people find it hard to find the correct person or firm to take on such a task as dismantle and removal of a full size snooker table during renovations of a damaged room .
and GCL Billiards are now known to a few insurance companies out there who have used our expert services of dismantle and dry storage and renovation of table to a like for like quotes .

this is what our client awoke to find one morning a couple of weeks ago
the best part of his garden and neighbours garden under water , the building at the bottom of his garden is his Snooker room .

a good pump around two days later reduced the water level
Our Client thought he may have got away with the room being under water , but it had just crept in by about 1/2 an inch to 1 inch , and water had been soaked up into the carpet and the bottom of our clients snooker table legs .

We have now dismantled the table and taken it to a dry storage depot that we use from our storage partner Jonills removals .

it will stay in storage drying out slowly over the next two months
because the room was very wet and damp , the Billiard cloth also soaked up the dampness like a sponge in the room just out of the damp air !
not a lot of people know this,
But a Snooker / Billiard cloth gets damp from just damp air , it will shrink when drying out if taken off on dismantle still damp and will not fit back on correct .
the cloth is made from 100% pure new wool so it will shrink when it gets wet , because this table had to be taken out of the building to dry out the cloth will have to be replaced .
Expect a  shrinkage of around 1.5 inch all the way around the cloth .
this was also explained to the insurance company , and they have also given the go ahead for a complete re-cover of bed and cushions in like for like , Strachan 6811 tournament 30 oz cloth
We expect to return the table and erect leaving ready for play when the room has been fully dried out and redecorated in around 2 months time .

I have just spent two days at a clients Home in Corby Northamptonshire.
My work for the two days was to set up a full size Karnehm and Hillman table and fit adjustable slate bearers , plus re-rubber and re-cover plus fit new nets and leathers
My client and his wife was also putting me up for a night with evening meal and Breakfast on site at his very nice home , this is a common thing with some clients who wish the table work to go smoothly with less traveling .
and I was most grateful for the offer of this which meant less traveling and more time on the job .

so the first part of the work was to fit some adjustable slate bearer’s or Muntin’s as we call them in the billiards industry
these are converted joist hangers with a bolt and lock nut attached .
I would recommend  this conversion as a very good upgrade on Snooker / Billiards tables , especially those built in the 1980s onward’s which have soft Italian / Chinese / Brazilian  slate which is prone to sagging if not supported in the center .

this photo shows the adjustable bracket’s fitted and the muntin slate bearer in place and screwed up to the center of the slate bed .
this will support the slate down the center of the table , and if any movement down then the slate can be easily adjusted upwards useing the bolts

to stop wood being screwed into a metal picture frame plate is screwed to the underside of the muntin bearer ,
so that the bolt only makes contact to the metal plate area , thus stopping the wood being damaged by the bolt .

a simple conversion yet so effective and makes the table slate bed much better to keep level , and adjust if necessary .
most modern Snooker / billiard table’s made today have this system fitted .
but there are thousands of tables out there which suffer from slate sagging , so always ask for this conversion if possible if you are having a table re-errected .

slate’s on level and under surround cloth tack wood linings fitted , and joint’s filled

Onto the re-rubber work , I glue all 6 strips together on my gluing board .

and we also glue the blocks of the cushions ready to make the contact adhesive  that we use work
both rubber back and block facing have equal amounts of contact adhesive spread onto them .

the rubber we use is very high class Northern rubber as used on world championship tables
made in Retford in the UK , now owned by Hainsworth
You can see this set of 6 cushion rubbers  left the Factory in March 2016 , so only 3 months old , we only buy our rubber as we require it .
We do not want to end up useing older stored rubber on our table work .
you can get lower priced Imported rubber , but we only fit the best the £60 saved is not worth the risk of being found out , we like to keep our reputation clean
so we only use high quality materials in all our work , the only time I use imported rubber is on UK pool tables which have imported rubber on from new unless the client asked for an upgrade to Northern rubber  .

the rubber is skillfully shaped and undercut smooth , you will not find any re-rubber done by Geoff at GCL Billiards cut rough and just covered over
I have even sanded the sharp wood angle to prevent cloth splitting when a ball falls against it down the pocket opening .
An example from another firm of rough cut rubber below .

just look how rough some fitters think is acceptable !

the rubber fitted to the block rebate of the cushion .

the cushions re-covered we now pay attention back to the slate bed ,
the filler we put in yesterday is sanded smooth over the joints and the whole bed lightly sanded to make as one smooth bed .
The level is also rechecked at this point .

the bed cloth laid on top of the slate ready for tacking .

The transfer of the Strachan 6811 30 oz tournament cloth used .
all Strachan cloth carries one of these transfers every 10 feet .

To make try and combat counterfeit cloth Strachan also embroider two blue lines for Tournament cloth or Red lines for club cloth
to one edge , they also embroider Genuine Pure Quality Strachan 6811 tournament to the side too .
Strachan by the way is pronounced STRAWN .
6811 tournament 30 oz is the most used cloth in the world , it has a very good reputation for durability qualities while retaining speed  and close nap , and is 100% pure new wool .
We only use the best manufactured cloth made in the UK.

Bed cloth fitted and marked out ready for ironing

the table is now complete apart from the cushion buttons which my client has for now misplaced

I also supplied a peradon black fitted dust cover and a set of second hand very well made hard top sections that tongue and groove together
the silver dust cover was also put on to protect the black cover , this table top is going to be used for when my client have Family and friends  around for Christmas and parties for dining off
the cover also has rubber inserts that protect the cushions .

My clients home , the snooker room is to the left of the main house with bi fold doors .

Just now and again I like to refresh my own stock of pool Supreme winner tables that we rent out to pubs and clubs
I had a couple of pubs close down or terminate the contract due to landlord moving on and Brewery stepping in
and deciding they want their recommended large firm rent the tables to them .
who do not do as much as GCL billiards to maintain them to a higher playing standard , so their loss and my buyers Gain .
This table originally supplied with a blue cloth was only on rent 6 months and then two weeks in another pub and one week at a  local tennis tournament.

So I decided to free a little space in our storage by selling a couple of tables , one to a firm in Leicester and this one to a Private home in Nottingham
I really should not have sold this one as it was as new condition and could have been passed off as new it was that good  .

end photo of the Supreme winner pool table 7×4 foot in Black Pearl finish

Side photo of coin operated Latest Edition green badged supreme winner , re-covered in best Strachan 6811 tournament cloth .
new cues balls and triangle and box of chalk and dust cover .
Sold for £695
the same table brand new on Ebay is £1234.50p  including delivery and set up and Peradon dust cover .
A saving from new of £539.50p and this table is as new as you can get .
As you can imagine our buying client was delighted with his purchase and around £500 in cash saved .
we do not often sell our own stock rental pool tables , but I have a couple of new ones ready for hire on contract rentals .
and prefer to keep rotating my new stock in and ex stock out , as I buy a few new ones at trade this means , I can rotate old stock in storage gathering dust out for new or cash in lieu waiting to buy new  , so I move them on and reinvest in new stock as and when I require them .
I do not have any more for sale at the moment but I do sometime release the odd one for sale , these are old stock latest design green badges pearl finish tables at £695 plus delivery and set up .
around a £500 saving on brand new COIN OPERATED machines .
please do not compare none coin free play Supreme winner pricing with a coin operated type , the coin op ones are much more expensive .
I normally only sell on after at least three years of use on contract rental hire .

I have been working in a large country house near Grantham  , now a hotel and conference centre
a few years ago I moved this table from an out building to the main house , unfortunately table is not of good manufacture and  a few mistakes with the build when it was new .
the main mistake being they made the side cushions too long resulting in the end cushions having been packed from new by the original installers .

on strip down I came across this , the end cushion has hardboard packing to make them fit the table .
the side cushions are too long and make the end cushion sit off the end of the table by around 3/8ths
so the original manufacturer just packed it on install ?
there is not a lot you can do with these cushions to rectify this on site , maybe replace with a decent set of cushions but I was instructed to re-rubber the cushions and then re-cover the table .

cushions off and rubber stripped off ready for re-rubber

this how I re-rubber and shape the cushion openings

and file smooth , a perfect pocket opening every time by GCL billiards

the other manufacturing fault was the way they slotted out for slate bolts , this is not as good as a perfect hole
the bounce in the cushions would not be as good as a perfect bolt hole cushions , as they are removing wood out of the cushion they are also removing weight of the cushions
a vital design of cushions is to make them heavy and stiff and bolt up tight for excellent bounce
all these did perform well enough they would have been far better if designed correct .

The bed cloth going on

I did have to attend to a very bad slate joint , someone had attempted to move the table and had disturbed the filler out of the joint

Bed cloth fully fitted

the table fully re-rubbered in best northern rubber made in the UK
fully re-clothed using best Quality UK made Strachan 6811 tournament cloth 30 oz weight
Brand new Leathers and nets Peradon UK supplied

UK Peradon supplied fitted dust cover

When I was re-rubbering the cushions I was asked if I had a lighting shade as they where using a very small pool table light placed very high
I did have a second hand 3/4 sized lighting shade that is hung also high would do a job ad was far better than what they had in use so I let them have this at a reasonable price
it was in very good condition

this is what they where playing under ?

the very Grand entrance to the large country house .

We often are asked to dismantle full size snooker tables and relocate them , this is around 10% of our yearly work load .
This week we where asked to dismantle a full sized Riley Aristocrat from an outbuilding upstairs location which had two stair case entry points .
one having a turn half way down , the other a balcony fire exit which I decided was the best way to get the heavy sectional slate downstairs
here is how three men achieved this .

this is the table in question , you can see the internal stair case at one end

this was our preferred route , as you can see we lay an old strip of carpet down the stairs to protect the staircase from our wooden slate slide.

one section of slate weighs around 200kg , you can see we have ratchet strapped our slate slide on one edge
I custom made this slate slide around 15 years ago .

the table with two sections left on ready to come off onto our Piano trolley ., this piano trolley has hard rubber tyres
the one we used at the bottom of the stair to get the slate to the van has pneumatic tyres on that can go over rough ground and the odd bit of loose shale or gravel which was the case here .

a close up of our slate slide  , once laid flat we wheel in position to the top of the stairs on the trolley .
two at the bottom edge the third person is at the top guiding the slate and also keeping it upright as we guide it down that carpet on the stairs .
it is important to hold back the weight as you slide it down , the danger of going too fast can result in a broken limb or worse
and there is five slates so we take our time .

once at the bottom of the stairs flip it back upright on its edge , ready to take off the slate slide and lower onto trolley

onto this pneumatic tyre trolley as we had to take this slate behind a building that only had a slate shale path .

two and half hours and we had the entire table dismantled and loaded and blanket wrapped .

loaded and we are ready to go , the slates came around the building on the right , the table was located upstairs in the far building with the twin dormer windows in the roof .
not an easy job , but we have been moving tables some years and we take the rough with the smooth , you do get some tables that take all day to safely get out of a building
we have even had to have windows taken out and tele handler fork lifts to get slates downstairs .
Normally 4 men are used to carry the slate downstairs using slings , we prefer to use the slate slide and this allows for one less man and therefore  lower priced to bring downstairs .
we do take risk’s though and the odd time I have refused to handle slate if I think it is unsafe to do it , only last month I declined to lower some extra thick slate down into a basement because it was unsafe and they then got a builders wagon in to lower them down with a crane .
each job has to be done it’s safety aspect and we have to access each job  , and if it is unsafe then we do not take the risk for a few hundred pounds profit .
This table was sold on our for sale section of GCL billiards web site as a private sale , and you can read the report on my website why my buying client bought this table off our selling client to replace a very shoddy made one .
this is what we do best , we put buyers in touch with sellers of tables and we just charge for the removal and fitting side of the work .

As a billiards fitter you think you have seen it all in the 40 years I have been fitting Billiard tables
Well this week I have just scrapped one of the worse tables I have ever worked on and good riddance to it .
It looks like someone has copied a hard board bed 6ft Argos table and tried to replicate it as a full size snooker table
Have a look at these photo’s of what I describe as the worst designed full size table I have ever worked on  .

looks ok to the untrained eye but cushion has no bolt holes in because it is just wood screwed from under the slate

someone has certainly taken their time in shaping and undercutting this rubber angle and made sure it is fastened to the block by nailing it on ?

No slip rebate strip , this has no slip out cushion slips for retaining the cushion cloth for future re-covering you have to unscrew the blocks off the outer wood

notice that this 5 section slate is thinner than normal slates and has no cushion bolt holes for cushion bolts in the side
and the cloth was just glued on around the outside edge

Slates are off to reveal a very shoddy thin plywood construction inner frame  held together with nothing more than coach bolts that you would use on a fence post
they even nailed the panels over the coach bolts to hide this , this table was very unstable and could have come crashing down if anyone had leant on it too hard .

the pocket plates where the type you would normally see on a Argos wood bed 6ft for £99

a close up of one corner leg thin wood work side and end frame , nailed on knee panels to hide 4 coach bolts
This table was shown me by the owner who was expecting me to re-cover it , I simply refused to work on it and I informed  I could get you a better table for under £500
plus the cost of dismantle and transport plus assemble with original cloth that was ok for say a years life left in it
in the long run I advised him this was his best option , the better table being a Genuine riley Aristocrat that if bought new today would be over £10.000
I showed the client a photo and he quickly agreed my route was better than him wasting a re-cover on this table that we eventually scrapped .
here is that table , you decide if I gave him the best option

the Riley Aristocrat Frame in the room set up in place of the rubbish scrapped table note the build quality of this table
thick wood used and sturdy large turned legs , and the polish was in very good unmarked  condition .

the Riley set of 5 slates which have hole in the side for the cushion bolts . click on any photo to enlarge for a better view .

the bed cloth has now been re-fitted , this cloth was not in bad condition and should give our client at least a year or two before a re-cover is required .
better to save money at this point in time to afford the table and moving costs rather than re-cover it now .

the finished table , our client is highly delighted that I refused to re-cover his badly made table
he now has a good table in excellent condition that going forward will re-cover correct and perform to a high standard .
this table with all the man power to get it downstairs the mileage delivery charge and the 2nd day dismantling his old table and assembling this one came to £1250 in total
I would say this was an excellent price for a Genuine Riley Aristocrat set up with original cloth back on .
I saved my client wasting £400 on a re-cover of his old table which would have had to have wood linings fitted and maybe add another £100 for the hassle of working on it .
so take £500 of that £1250 and he extra outlay to get a quality table put in place of his old one was £750.
and he has something that is worthwhile playing on , I could have bought this table in re-rubbered the cushions and put new cloth and pockets on and sold it for over £3000 plus delivery and set up .
there are plenty of people wanting genuine Riley Aristocrat tables with or without steel cushions .
but they have to be competitively priced and in a form of affordability like this one was , the only thing I will warn anyone looking to buy a second hand table , the cost of dismantle and moving a bad table is the same as a good table so get it right in your choice of table .
ask Geoff at GCL BILLIARDS for any advise about a table you know about for sale and send him photo’s if you are thinking of buying a table …ADVICE IS ALWAYS FREE

I have been out and about local today , first stop off was a club in Hucknall in Nottinghamshire .
the club has two 8ft Riley pool tables .
and they decided to have one refurbished with a new pure wool 6811 tournament napped cloth recover .

The before and after re-cover on the Riley 8 foot pool table .
the club also plays snooker on these 8 foot pool tables

The 7 ft pool table at Watnall , a very old Super League that has seen better days , but our client wanted to keep it in a playing condition .

and now refurbished playing area with new pocket liners too .