Dirtiest table I have ever seen!

[philip in china]

An acquaintance of mine runs a bar in town. I offered to go and clean and iron his table. When I got to the job it was more in the way of excavation than table maintenance. I brushed it half a dozen times before I stopped getting piles of dirt out of it. Blocked and ironed it and it does look a lot better but it has gone past what can be saved so he will have to get a new cloth. I have also suggested a simple nylon cover for the table.

Why do people not take care of things? I can't understand it.

[chas6868]

My local rileys is like that, I dont go there anymore incase I catch anything

[Terry Davidson]

Allowing a cloth to get dirty only makes the cloth wear out a lot faster and in the end costs the owner more to re-cloth frequently (that's if he cares at all). Tell the owner that and see if it convinces him.

From what I've seen on here Riley needs to do a corporate learning/training program on basic table maintenance for their staff. It wouldn't cost much and would probably save them a lot of money in the end (but again, do they care?).

Terry

[philip in china]

I think the amazing thing is that table care is so simple and costs virtually nothing.

[andy carson]

I think the amazing thing is that table care is so simple and costs virtually nothing.

and gives you a good right arm

[Geoff Large]

the dirtiest table I ever worked on was at Derby Salvation army hostel many years ago it is no longer there now , we had a service contract to just go and brush and iron it every 3 months , but never any recover , the cloth was black with grease , it was like ironing through tar , there was fleas on the table ,and we always used to get bitten , but I never refused to do it .

[mythman69]

At one of my old work premises, they had a pool table in the lunchroom. The table was always bad (uneven, filthy and smelt bad) but it got worse when someone ripped the cloth (a good 30cm+ triangle). The 'solution' was to super glue the tear back to the table, but as you can imagine this was not done well and there was a gap of about 5cm. We used to call it the bunker (like if golf).

[philip in china]

Thanks for that Geoff. I was about to have a sandwich but for some reason I don't seem hungry any longer.

the dirtiest table I ever worked on was at Derby Salvation army hostel many years ago it is no longer there now , we had a service contract to just go and brush and iron it every 3 months , but never any recover , the cloth was black with grease , it was like ironing through tar , there was fleas on the table ,and we always used to get bitten , but I never refused to do it .

[david147]

Dirtiest table I have ever seen!

clean whit warm water and plain vinegar

[DeanH]

clean whit warm water and plain vinegar

not on the cloth surely?

[pottr]

Never soak a cloth... Recipe for disaster

[david147]

Dirtiest table I have ever seen!

yep just like i said . not too weth . even the green color will come back

[Staezione]

I sometimes lightly damp the cloth before i iron my table. Nice green cloth again and the moist is gone very quickly due to my table heating.

[Geoff Large]

The cloth always goes a darker green when damp , it will revert back to normal worn colour as soon as all the moisture is gone , so what does that tell you , the cloth is damp and you are playing on damp cloth .
the golden rule is never damp the cloth , use proper spray cleaner , the only time a Billiards fitter use water to damp the cloth is when fitting from new around the middle pocket falls you can see this on TV look close at the centre pocket fall area for a water stain , so that when the table is ironed the cloth shrinks to fit better around this centre slate fall without wrinkles , some cloth grades are easier to fit than others . also see the Starch thread on here http://www.thesnookerforum.co.uk/boa...tenance/page24
One of the main reasons for putting heaters under the slate is to keep the humidity out of the cloth to keep the tables speed up to a good standard , so why damp it in the first place ?
Damping cloth also solidify's the chalk dust and binds it like a glue paste into the weave , some thing you cannot see from above the cloth , but when a fitter takes the cloth off it is like cardboard .