what is the best cloth?

[phidavi7]

im trying to get my local club to recloth there two tables, and wanted to know what the best cloth is? also what cloth is used on the pro circuit?

[Deepscrew]

Strachen No.10 is used on pro tour. Wouldnt last long in a club environment though.

The top Hainsworth cloth is meant to be very good but again, in a normal club environment its not going to last.

How often do the tables get recovered at your club? All types of players play on them or just good players in general?

[phidavi7]

they hardly get used, and when they do the majority of the players are over 60, i think the tables were last done about 2 years ago, and because they dont get used very often they have no reason to do them regular, i want a good table to play on as i am hoping to go onto the amateur circuit.

i have heard the new hainsworth precision cloth is really good

[jarcher]

what is the best cloth?

I would go with the No.10. Although most say it doesn't last as long, from my own experience, I've found that on the slower cloths, people tend to hit the ball harder, dig too deep for screw, taking chunks out of the cloth etc and therefore wearing it out faster, whereas the No.10, the player tends to stroke the ball more, it's also easier to maintain and I would invest in a good horse hair brush.

[maxz]

so recommended for business use? hainsworth 10

[sharpsnooker]

strachan 6811 30 ounce is the only way to go. will last the time of 2 years or more runs quick from the start. Only other option is strachan club which is quicker again but i have never seen it used in a club as yet.
Is the club supplying the cloth or the fitter also supplying the cloth?

[cazmac1]

so recommended for business use? hainsworth 10

I played on this cloth for the first time yesterday and have to say I did not like the cloth. It took me ages to get used to the speed. I did eventually started to string a few balls together but just found it hard work in general. I suppose if I was playing on it every day I would get used to it. The cloth is around 3 months old and it has little or no nap on it, when you play the white hard you can actually hear the white running across the weave of the cloth. Also a lot is said about how a ball will slide in of the knuckle of the pocket on a new cloth, for a cloth that is only 3 months old it had no slide at all. On final observation is that as the cloth has little nap on it any roll on the table however slight is amplified, so I would make sure that if you going to use this cloth make sure that your table is dead level.
PS
One final thing I notice was the cloth was very lose and when I was playing I was often causing the cloth to bubble on in front of my bridge hand. I don't know if this is a characteristic of the cloth after is has been on the table for a few months or was it badly fitted to begin with.
Feed back welcome on my comments.

[Neil Taperell]

That's probably due to the fact of the normal quality of cloths fitted at Riley's Peter . Presume they must be quite thick cloths at Riley's and you hit the ball harder to compensate . So it's quite a culture shock to play on a quick and responsive table .
When i play on a Star table with a new cloth , the ball slides but it won't take long for this to stop sliding ......so the Pro's want the cloth to be changed to a new one .
Are you not gripping the cloth too tightly for the cloth to bubble in front of your bridge hand ? Same thickness of cloth that the Pro's use .

[cazmac1]

Neil, you can never grip the cloth too tight the stronger your bridge hand the better IMO. I never ever in 30 years of watching pro snooker have never seen any player to ripple to cloth with there bridge hand. Sadly it comes down to the strength of the table fitter and how hard he can stretch the cloth. I trained as a table fitter for a short time when I worked at archway snooker club and this is one of the points that the table fitter taught me. As I have no experience of this cloth I can't say weather the cloth just naturally looses it tightness over as short period and needs re-stretching or was not stretched enough to begin with. But a cloth as fine as that may not last long if it was stretched and would play even faster. I would like some feed back from Geoff if he's around.

[Neil Taperell]

Fitted by WPBSA table fitter !!!!!

[cazmac1]

Fitted by WPBSA table fitter !!!!!

Neil You seem to take these comments personally. Seeing as you want to go down this road let's not hold back. The table is not level, presumably levelled by this WPBSA fitter and the cloth is as loose as an old lady's underwear. If this guy is a WPBSA fitter I would say that that don't count for much or would say that he is either one of there worst fitters on there books or he is just taking the **** and doing a quick in and out job this is the second table I've played on at this club and the other one was so pissed that you can't even roll a pink into the middle bag at a medium pace without the ball rolling off. Your a mate Neil but I'm sorry if you don't like my comments but I ain't going to pretend that things are perfect when they are a long way off. Maybe you can get this fitter to come on the forum and shoot me down for my comments I would love to know way he can't get a table level that has been in situ for many a year so has long since gone passed the need for settling down. Back to the cloth and like I said it might just be the way the cloth goes after a few months as this is a pro cloth and I have no experience of this kind of cloth, so like I said would like feed back from Geoff. I have sent Geoff a PM and am waiting for his response.
Being part of an organisation or affiliated to a body is in no way any guarantee of quality, most if not all these body's just want you cash.

[cazmac1]

Instead of being defensive Neil you should take the comments on brd and see if there is any justification in them before trying to shoot me down with comments such as fitted by a WSBA approved fitter as if to say I'm talking out my back side and as such am wrong? I think my 30 years experience should count for something.

By the way I really enjoyed the game

[Geoff Large]

It is well known thast Pro cloths are Thin , and beleive me they make them even thinner these days than a few years ago , Clubs are not going to pay for a cloth that can wear out very quick and maybe even rip easy from rough use or rip when fitting , it only takes one deep screw trick shot to tear a cloth , normaly when someone is showing off his skills .
Even if you play to a good standard in semi pro use around the clubs the majority say 90% will be Hainsworth smart or Strachn 6811 Tournament . so my advice is stick to that grade of cloth it is the most widly used thickness and is used by clubs and private use , only a small majority use the thin match cloths for say a match table in a multi table club or in private use where the player or owner thinks he is going to play better becuase he has pro cloth on , it's a bit like golf balls some are designed to travel truer and others to travel farther , the cloths do have differant speeds but they also have quicker wear out and easy tear properties to get to the speed to the point they are not durable .
You can relate this quality to many differant things in life Tyres / TV Screens / brake pads and discs / even Bath taps ...you pay youre money and make youre choice , and an informed choice if possible , my personal choice would be to go with the Norm of 90%of tables out there and have strachan 6811T or hainsworth smart .
Youre fitter will not be nervous about fitting it either , I have had some match cloths just part at the weave when stretching because they have removed all stability out of the cloth in the search for the fastest cloths for the Pro's .

Geoff

[cazmac1]

So what your saying is that the fitter may have purposely or subconsciously under stretched the cloth through fear of tearing it or maybe if the cloth is stretched to tight may be more prone to tearing on a miss cue.

[Geoff Large]

No I'm not saying the fitter has understretched it , A fitters job is to get the cloth on as tight as possible he should be trained to do that , I am never afraid to pull cloth to it's limit sometimes useing clamps to help , but the manufacturers are always changing the spec of the cloth and it is this new spec that is in my opinion a higher risk of tearing under load fitting than any other cloth , any cloth that is NOT put on tight has a higher risk of tearing on a cue stab , a tight cloth tends to just scuff a bit of nap off , But through recklessness and lack of respect for cloth that they have not paid for it is possible to tear a very tight cloth if the cue is forced into the cloth at pace , especialy with hard tips and worn down tips showing ferrule edge , in todays modern game cue balls are being screwed back at pace more often resulting in damaged cloth . Pro players are always developing their game and if you look at the lenth of some screwback shots on TV to what pro players where performing in the 70s and 80s the game has moved on .
just as in football where boots and the ball and even the turf has been modified , so has the materials used in the game of snooker from tips to balls and the cloth , and even the cushions and rubber , and I think they have taken the match cloth a bit too far in development and in my opinion they want to back track a bit to a more robust product .

All table fitters know that the cloth manufacturers have been developing thinner spec cloth these past 10 years as the slips that hold the cloth tight in the rebate get loose on each recover , this proves the cloth being fitted and being branded as the same spec cloth in this case 6811T is not the same spec as the one fitted the time before .