today I have been in Derbyshire at a small club who have a very old cox and yeman full size table .

over the years the cushions have been patched up over and over again , this i think is the last time we shall get away with just recovering the table as the woodwork now has major issue’s

the table , starting to re-cover the cushions


as can be seen from above two photo’s the cushions over the years ( Before my time ) have been hacked around a bit and replacement modern but old type top plates fitted because there is no wood for the concealed original pockets to locate to .

The finished table , with cloth wraps right around the back of each cushion to hide the rotted wood , then screw on back panels no one is none the wiser as to the seriousness of the rotting crumbling cushions . I have suggest they budget for new or decent second hand cushion s to be fitted with new concealed pocket plates , the table is very good for level having good Welsh slates at 2 inch thick , this is something the secretary has taken on board and will now budget for over the next two years , so hopefully the cushions will be scrapped and new ones fitted in the future. Believe it or not these are not the worse case of cushions I have had to re-cover .
THESE WHERE because they still had the two pin pocket plates on which where not supported and sagged down , you can see the above photos that some sort of rebated metal had been put under the pocket to support the plates these had been removed and top plates fitted with new wood cushion cappings , in my opinion not the correct thing to do

this table is 1/2 inch wider than a normal 6 foot 1-1/2 inch table being 6ft 2 inch , this will cause me a few problems when fitting new cushions , as the end cushions will have to be 1/2 inch longer or have more rubber left at the cut of openings at each end to make up for the wider pocket opening , also the pocket plates will have to drilled closer into the table .

thank fully it is dead on 12 foot long slate which is normal.

they have a nice old Life pool scoreboard by Burroughs and watts on the wall which has had some restoration around  10 years ago

the original cox & Yemen badge had been put on the outside panels of the cushions .

Today I had an email asking what type of table is this and had I seen one before

Now the only type of game I  have seen that is like this is Indian carom , which is played with pucks in place of balls , I think this is a ball version of that game being 3ft by 3ft .
the Original puck type Indian carom table is a bit smaller

apparently you have to put a powder on the board to make the pucks travel and glide with ease .
as can be seen a board with four pockets or holes at each corner and a star in the centre , I have seen one of these in a house where I was recovering a 7ft table ,
they used a small mace stick to push the pucks ,

although I think you can use your hand to flick the puck too .
I thought this maybe of interest to readers of our blog as to unusual board games played like a Pool or snooker table .

Has anyone any information of the larger Ball version of this game in the first photo ?

Today I started off in Leicester , a High end Car Dealer outlet required their 6ft Slimline Supreme Prince pool table recovered from Black to Green .
The table had the usual glue on top of slate which had to be cleaned off before any recover could be done .


Above two photo’s of Glue residue with black cloth fluff still in the old glue , and the next photo we had washed it off using Acetone .

With the slate being cleaned of all old Glue on top of playing area , the new cloth is laid out on top of the slate ready to glue

The New cloth has been laid on , the old cloth used to protect the new cloth from any new glue spills ,
**Note we do not use spray on glue , but Contact adhesive . Spray on glue is not the way to re-cover pool tables , if you see someone using it on sited tables then Buyer beware
they will get over spray on the slate top and on the Ball rails and all inside of the table , a sign of  a speed fitter
this table took just two and a half  hours to re-cover a speed fitter may have done it in half the time before moving onto the next unsuspecting Customer !

And we took every Staple out of the cushion’s , speed fitters just take a few out of the end of the cushion , and that’s on a good day !
Sometimes they do not take any out at all .

slate completed ready to mark out and Iron , Speed fitters do not Iron !

the finished Table , this is the slimline Prince model , same top surround and slate and cushions as the more expensive coin op table you would see in Pub’s, but at a lower price.

after this work , I went back to Long Eaton to fit a brand new set of cushions to a 6ft Winner supreme table , and also upgrade the Supreme Plastic gully rails , as the table was 13 years old and on it’s second set of gully rails now fitted with no 3 set fitted .

The super 6 coin mech is much better than the ESD 5 slot type which you can pick up at a very low price , we always recommend fitting the best super 6 coin mech to commercial pool tables they are much better built and last far longer , we make sure our own Rental tables are fitted with them as their is less chance of breakdown . they are around 3 times the price of the ESD but you get what you pay for .
So armed with the coin mech , I then visited a local Pool club to fit a new Coin mechanism set on £1 play . Then back to the office to update the web site blog and also look at work for next week , tomorrow I am recovering a full size snooker table at a British Legion in Derbyshire .
Work is coming in steady , we are not too busy in March  yet  , and hope to fill the gaps in the coming days and weeks , so if you have a Cue sports table that  may require work  , contact Geoff at GCL billiards for a quote .

 

 

Another pool table recover and what a mess under the cloth , you could see a ball rolling down the cushion turning off very bad , the culprit was over spray by cowboy Pool table recoverer .

I always use spread Contact adhesive , and apply it with a toothed glue Comb , I never go anywhere near the playing area with glue .


As you can see from the two photo’s above the spray on glue is proud of the slate and well in front of the cushion overhang
A ball will be rolling all over the place when it has to go over this , why do they use it ….SPEED you get what you pay for ,
they maybe £10 to £20 lower priced than GCL Billiards Quote but this is the result , they take around 1hour sometimes even less to recover a pool table , sometimes just Exchange  old cushions  allready recovered over and then a quick spray on with the glue and bond the cloth on , 15 minutes to cover a slate bed !

The finished table a DPT Ascot .

they are too busy trying to break records to see how many tables they can recover in a day , They are not going to do a good job
I sanded most of the glue down and then used Acetone to remove the most stubborn , before completing the recover , the slate will have no foreign muck under the cloth for the ball to
roll off now .

another job I did  few weeks ago showing Acetone being used to remove Glue over-spray , just look at the old glue being removed ,
if this was not done would the ball suddenly stop when approaching the pocket slate fall ?
And the outcome would be an expensive recover that is not right and they always say when we are in the area to put it right ….don’t get caught out !
Use GCL Billiards as the first choice , we only do two tables a day one in the morning one in the afternoon or three if in the same room and we offer discount’s for multiple table recovering.

 

We have just been called back after 12 months for a major service visit to re stretch the bed cloths on two tables and retip a few cue’s and check levels in a local club , the 8ft is in the downstairs Bar area and is used every Lunch time by a group of Old Boys
the 12ft is upstairs and is an Enbild manufactured table made around 1980’s and bought for just £200 when the local electricity board closed their Social club they had two for sale I bought one and this club bought the other around 12 years ago , Enbild always Hand Floated their slates , unfortunately most modern tables are not hand floated .

Above the full size Enbild bought for just £200

The 8ft Snooker Table in the Ground Floor bar area , this table is a well used and has been in this club for many years , infact I have been working on it on and off for the last 39 YEARS
this table was made by John Gent when they where based on convent Street in Nottingham ,  and is dated to around 1890 .
The old boys are on this table every Lunch time , I enjoy the Banter I get with them when working on the table , first they moan because they cannot play but they are Ok with it really , it’s only once a year that I have to stop play to either stretch or re-cover . the Old boy in white is Walter who is in his 90’s and a right character he is .
Note that this 8ft has been well made with 6 legs , those made with 4 legs have problems with slate sag in the middle , the centre legs are a must have on tables above 6ft , but even most 7fts only have 4 legs .

When I re-stretched the 8ft I replaced all the wood Tack slate  linings on the bed , the old one’s where getting past their best and I was finding it hard to get tacks to stay in , some of those wood linings where as old as the table . now it is as good as new and plenty of wood to tack into.

 

Due to people getting confused with old offers that GCL Billiards have done in the past such as Christmas discount offer on pool table recover or a special offer run because we do not have enough work in and we are trying to spur people into booking us for work for that slack period .
So look out for special offers on Pool table recovers and make sure it is an up to date advertisement on our web site and not one from 18 months ago.

We have had two enquiries from the same source for recovering prices in the last week , I gave the prices below of what we charge only to be told but you are advertising recovers from £145 in Strachan cloth , I had to point out that offer was 12 to 18 months ago and the offer advert did say EXPIRES on DECEMBER 22nd 2012 ,our web site is an ongoing blog site and I do have every offer on there from 18 months ago , these offers expire when the materials discounted to me are used up.
The free ball run is every December just about but it can only be offered if I get the free balls , the cloth discount is when the wholesaler is having a clearance offer on their stock . and we pass these discounts onto our clients.

I will make it very plain as to the normal price we charge for re-covering a UK pool table in the Two main Strachan cloth grades that we do

For Strachan 777 pool cloth our normal charge is £165 this includes cleaning out the table , and levelling plus fitting any extra cost parts which you pay for as an extra FITTED free of charge such as gully boot runners and pocket liners if you have these done at the same time as a re-cover , you will only pay cost for these extra items and what the postage was to us when having your table recovered.
For example a set of the new upgraded gully runners for the Supreme pool table normal price is £50 per set supplied only , but if you have then fitted at the same time as a recover we can do them at £30 a set. these Gully runners are the latest that supreme are manufacturing and they do not allow the ball to bounce back up and back onto the tbale like the original hard plastic type .

The New upgraded Gully rail …see below for further information

Old gully Runner above with smooth plastic , these allow for bounce up of ball , a common problem with early supreme tables.

For higher nap grade Strachan 6811 pool cloth we charge £185 and the same conditions apply as above .

If you require the 6811 tournament which in my opinion is much slower than the 6811 pool and is made of exactly the same materials , the tournament is 30 oz and the 6811 pool is around 28 oz with very fine nap. there is a noticeable difference in thickness of these two cloths and in my opinion the slightly lower cost 6811 pool is the winner for the best results on a pool table , that is why the manufacturer makes it that weight , they are both 100% pure new wool cloths , add £10 extra for Tournament cloth so £195 per recover .

We sometimes get asked to fit Speed cloth to UK style pool tables , although we do not recommend it we can offer this special order cloth for the same price as the 6811 pool at £185 per recover , but this cloth will not be on any special offers as it cost’s us more to buy than the 6811 so is already discounted. We like to recommend the Strachan Super pro cloth as the choice of speed cloth , it is much better to fit than these stiff euro thick low price options and plays much better too . and there is only £20 difference from the lower cost option of a 7ft pool table .

above a photo of the new type of ball rail gully that supreme now fit to their new tables , if you have the old worn out type or are having problems with balls bouncing back up from the old hard smooth plastic type gully, then we can fit these new bolt down type at the same time as a recover just order them at the same time . and we will fit them at cost .

All above price’s are for 6ft and 7ft tables , we only supply 7ft bed and cushions , this is because people get confused as to the size of table they have and order 6ft when it is a 7ft table they have , most are 7ft anyway  , to avoid confusion we only order 7ft packs of Strachan cloth , if you have a 8ft table please inform us as these are higher priced.

WE DO offer DISCOUNT for multiple tables being recovered at the same time , but please note we do not rush our work and take our time to make sure you get the best job done on your pool table by a Time served Qualified billiards fitter , and we have the recommendation of our local snooker and billiards association the NBSA, to back our claim up that we know what we are doing .

Now and again we get a special offer from our cloth supplier and offer a free set of standard imported balls free for general play , these are not High class balls but they are a free .
We also now and again get a special deal for cloth and we try and pass this onto our clients rather than make a few extra £ s ourselves , these offers only come around now and again and the timing for your pool table recover would have to come in line when these offers are announced which is random so I am afraid it is pot luck if you get a free set of balls or a lower price on your cloth .

We also level to a high standard , sometimes rectifying by shimming here and there as the manufacturer sometimes can be slightly out with their cabinet manufacture that supports the slate .

 

Now that I have put the prices on the web site blog  , there will be a few who undercut me , what you have to take into account is , are they up to the standards of GCL Billiards , do they rush a job to do as many in a day as possible , do they use low cost spray on glue to fasten the bed cloth to the slate only for it to come off within a few days , do they take every staple out of the cushion’s and re glue the rubber back on if it is falling off , do they clean the table out and do minor repairs for free , do they use second’s cloth and charge for perfect cloth or even unbranded cloth .
We know of one Wales based firm who undercuts out pricing of pool table recover’s using substandard cloth and poor workmanship , at the end of the day is it worth the risk to save a few £s , the lowest quote is not always the best quote , by using GCL billiards you cut out the risk of bad materials and bad workmanship .

We are busy during January , but may offer a discount for February , so if you are planning to have your pool table recovered then get in touch with Geoff at c.large@btinternet.com to see if we have any offers on .

 

 

The snooker work has died off a bit at the moment although I did do two this week .
It will come back though and we do have quote’s out for recover and removal transport and set up of full size and 8ft to 10ft tables, but for the time being it is pool table work that is keeping GCL Billiards very busy

we had a phone call asking for a special offer we where doing just before Christmas , so we extended this offer for them which was a free set of ball with a Recover .
It was a works Canteen in a busy supermarket in Derby , they where delighted with the table once recovered set on Free play and levelled and the Free Ball set.
The cloth we used was our standard Strachan 777 grade in Burgundy which is getting to be the next most used colour after Green .

The 7×4 Super league table stripped down cushions off and bed cloth ready to be glued to the slate .

The finished Table .

Unbelievable amount of separate Pool table job’s that we have taken on in January .

I have never had so many to Re-cover in such a short time , we are working weekends and some evenings to catch up .
it just shows that GCL Biliards has now become one of the firm’s to trust to have your pool table re-covered in the proper manner , with Glue that keeps the cloth stuck to the slate and the insides of the tables fully checked over including coin mech and level
we never use cheap spray on glue or rubbish cloth , our cloth is from Strachan the same manufacturer of Professional cue sports cloth as used on all the full size snooker tables on TV .
we can also obtain Hainsworth cloth if you prefer which are another well known top make .

Red , blue , green and burgundy are the most popular colour

some have no choice to be recovered as was the case with this torn cloth example .

one of our rental tables

We also cater for Large club’s with 9ft sam K steel american pool tables and the traditional Supreme pool table

If you would like someone who care’s about the way the table is recovered then get in touch with Geoff at GCL billiards , we are somehow always busy but try to never turn work away .
If you are interested in having a Pub pool table recovered and it is past it’s best , then why not think about hireing instead of buying ? , we Rent pool tables out to pub’s and club’s at a very good rate starting at £15 per week and £18.50p if you require a recover every 6 months for winter and summer league starts.
Most pool tables average £45 upwards per week in takings , if you hire you have no recover charges or maintenance costs , just the weekly rental charge.

we are growing our Pool table hire business every month , we like to keep them local to us though so that we can meet our commitments of excellent back up should anything go wrong say with a torn cloth or jammed coin mech .
we use the excellent Supreme range of Pool tables which we find have good back up service for spares .
and they are the Players choice as used by professional Pool players and used on the UK pool tour , so your playing on the best tables on the market .