We are very busy at the moment and are fully booked up for the month of May. We are not complaining as it shows people want GCL Billiards to do the work on their cue sports table.
Last week I had a phone call from a local private house who required a recover of an old pool table they had picked up off ebay. I was fully booked up but did this on Saturday as I do not like turning work away. The table was an old Hazel grove super league copy, probably made by Lymegrove. This was the type of table you would find in most pubs by the 1970s/80s.
There are still plenty of these tables around and some people even put them outside on patios for a couple of years before the weather gets to them.
This one had a very loose cloth on it and was badly fitted, plus the cloth was not very good, as can be seen from the photo below.
I replaced the cloth with Strachan 777 grade pool cloth at a competitive price. The cushions where not good but the client will get a couple of years out of the table before selling it on for what he paid for it, just £100.
I am sure he will get plenty of practice on the table now it has been re-covered and we also fitted a set of new pocket liners.
Even these old Lymegrove tables scrub up well after a re-cover.
And no job is too small, from a 6ft pool table to a full size snooker table for match play, GCL billiards will not turn you away if the table is good, the distance is not too far and the work profitable.
There are however some tables we do not recover. These are mainly the type sold by Argos and they are just nailed together. But you will also be surpised to know that some full size tables are made in exactly the same way, nailed on block cushions with no slips and glued together. They are a nightmare to re-cover as they were not designed to be.
We always ask if possible to send a photo of the table. This helps us identify the make and we can be double sure that we can take the job on. Only the other day I had a job of moving an 8ft snooker dining table and the underside wood that the lifters where on was just glued to the slate. Unlike the Riley diners which are fully slate screwed to subframed anti bow beamed and solid. When the table was lifted to playing height the wood board was pulled off the slate. The maker (which I will not name but has an impressive sales web site) is still making these diners the same way and they are not cheap at £2,500.
I have persuaded the owner of the snooker diner to have the table converted to a fixed height table with a thick beamed subframe sprayed black, the same colour as the frame and cushions. Because he has not bought any chairs yet, he can get chairs with extra leg height for this. The slate was 8ft long and sagged down in the middle so it could not be played without balls rolling towards the middle anyway.
When I make the new subframe it will have 4 adjustable cross bearing muntings. This will make the slate very level and a simple job of taking a spanner under the table to adjust 8 bolts for leveling. I also put extra screws in the cushions for a better bounce. The table was made without much thought. I will at the same time take the very slow thick wool cloth off and re-cover it in 6811 tournament Strachan cloth. It is a good job for me, but it should have been made this way to start with.
Raise and fall diners with the Riley type lifters are ok to 6ft and 7ft but after this size they bow in the middle, especially the 8ft and 9ft tables. The old E J Riley ones are better as they have anti bow beams running the entire length of the table. I will post photos of the table when I get around to doing it in June.
