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