Dents in Snooker Cloths

[Shockerz]

We have a Hainsworth Match Cloth which has been playing great, I would certainly recommend it.

Apparently, we have a guy who plays every night and when things aren't going well he bangs the balls back on the spots when his opponent is potting them, over time it has left a dent on a couple of the spots.

When playing a blue off the spot to the end pockets it now jumps out of the spot, obviously the guy needs sorting out which is another story.

Does anyone know the best way to bring the cloth up level again or has had this before?

I have thought about spraying water and roughing it up with a brush but i'm sure it will end up leaving a circle of cloth a different colour around the spot; probably because it will be cleaner than the rest.

The cloth is just over a year old.

I thought I'd gauge some thoughts before trying anything as the way the cloth is playing now is killing certain shots.

[TooDark]

Sounds quite bad if blue is jumping but try rubbing a ball over spot area in various directions which might help.

[Geoff Large]

Hainsworth Match cloth is thin cloth , if he has been banging the ball on the spot area WITHOUT spots then it will almost be worn through ?
you do not get much more than a year on match cloth so it may be due a re-cover anyway .
You do not normally re-stretch a HAINSWORTH MATCH bed cloth

if you HAVE spots protecting the cloth , then take the spots off and tease the cloth nap up on the spot with a pin , and try putting a spot of water only on the indentation , this will swell the cloth back up .
wait for it to dry , re-iron and then replace spots back on .

if it is slate dust that has been banged under the spot then you may have a small mountain of compressed slate or chalk dust under the sloth and this is what may be making the ball jump .
chalk dust will find its way through a cloth , when a ball is tapped on the spot it causes this chalk dust to travel by vibration towards the impact spot , this is then impacted and causes a mountain of compressed chalk dust to form directly under the spot .
if you are in a club when a fitter takes a cloth off look at the spot areas to see this small mountain of compressed chalk dust , it is like a raised dimple on the slate where the spot has been .

[DeanH]

also put up a notice to the effect that bad behavior - like throwing and banging balls on the cloth - damages the cloth and will cost the club money by replacing cloths, and charges of table time may go up

hurt them were they feel it most - their own pockets :wink:

[Shockerz]

also put up a notice to the effect that bad behavior - like throwing and banging balls on the cloth - damages the cloth and will cost the club money by replacing cloths, and charges of table time may go up

hurt them were they feel it most - their own pockets :wink:

Yep, done that bit; the guy who's doing it lost it a bit when his wife passed away and snooker's all he lives for so a tough one as I don't think he's quite right nowadays and in his 80's; what can you do as you tell him but he's just not with it.

Sounds quite bad if blue is jumping but try rubbing a ball over spot area in various directions which might help.

Might be worth a go if all else fails.

if you HAVE spots protecting the cloth , then take the spots off and tease the cloth nap up on the spot with a pin , and try putting a spot of water only on the indentation , this will swell the cloth back up .
wait for it to dry , re-iron and then replace spots back on .

if it is slate dust that has been banged under the spot then you may have a small mountain of compressed slate or chalk dust under the sloth and this is what may be making the ball jump .
chalk dust will find its way through a cloth , when a ball is tapped on the spot it causes this chalk dust to travel by vibration towards the impact spot , this is then impacted and causes a mountain of compressed chalk dust to form directly under the spot .
if you are in a club when a fitter takes a cloth off look at the spot areas to see this small mountain of compressed chalk dust , it is like a raised dimple on the slate where the spot has been .

Thanks for the reply Geoff.

We don't have spots. Can't tell if there's chalk dust under it but it certainly feels even until you get to the blue spot and then the cloth looks a little worn as in a crater.

Do you think it would help to stick spots on the divots?

[DeanH]

Yep, done that bit; the guy who's doing it lost it a bit when his wife passed away and snooker's all he lives for so a tough one as I don't think he's quite right nowadays and in his 80's; what can you do as you tell him but he's just not with it.

tricky one, grief takes many forms and most people don't notice behaviour as such and takes a long time for it to fully move on (over a year usually).

so maybe anonymous notices with general indication that damage is being noticed on the cloths, etc....
and maybe a quiet word in his "shell-like" - "how you doing buddy, all ok? you seem to be a bit angry sometimes..."

if you have divots and the water-drop trick does not work then putting a spot over wont make it better
(been there-done that)

[Geoff Large]

Yep, done that bit; the guy who's doing it lost it a bit when his wife passed away and snooker's all he lives for so a tough one as I don't think he's quite right nowadays and in his 80's; what can you do as you tell him but he's just not with it.



Might be worth a go if all else fails.



Thanks for the reply Geoff.

We don't have spots. Can't tell if there's chalk dust under it but it certainly feels even until you get to the blue spot and then the cloth looks a little worn as in a crater.

Do you think it would help to stick spots on the divots?

This is the thing that players think they can do without because they see no spots on TV tables

but the cloth is only on a TV table for a maximum of three days only

I see this premature wear of spot area due to players taking spots off or insisting no spots from new re-cover all the time

spots are there for a reason , to protect cloth from the constant placing of a ball on the same spot time and time again , and the cloth in a club should last around 18 month to 2 years , not 3 days !

I use green spots off Amazon , they are 8mm very thin and are used in offices for marking or colour coding , they are not designed for snooker tables but they are the thinnest and smallest you can get

these are the ones to get
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ivy-Adhesiv.../dp/B00XPJ16PG

you have to iron them on and then they stay on , you can replace them monthly .
and at only 92p for 490 there are plenty of spots to last just in one packet .

to place a ball on a new spot , just hold the ball on the spot and click the placed ball across the top aside ways glance is all that is require with the cue ball , this will stop the ball rolling of the spot and seat it on the spot .

At 92p you have nothing to lose but to try them .

[ace man]

We've had spots in our club, for two years. The trouble with these is that they can never be thin enough.

After a while you may have trouble respotting balls.

And in some cases, slow balls passing near those spots...you could get strange roll offs sometimes.

Once those spots were taken off near the end of cloth life, then we got strange wear artifacts, like white circle around the black spot for example. It would seem that players were often lazy and didn't respot exactly on spot, but rather as close as possible to it without the ball actually sitting on a plastic protective spot. Plus, the plastic spot is slightly raised, however thin it may be.

The green ones that Geoff posted, maybe they are better and worth trying out, I don't know.

If I were a club owner and my tables were open to public, yes, I'd use them most of the time. For competitions, I'd take them off.

But for private clubs with members being players who treat the tables as if they were their own, protective spots may not be necessary. I know, not all players are like that. Just one ball banger is enough to do the damage, as we can see from this topic.

I switched clubs, and at this new place we had cloth for one year without any protective spots. No issues other than normal wear and tear. Tiny dent on most used spots is acceptable I think. Now we have moved on to a different place and the cloth is brand new again... We'll see how it goes.

[vmax]

The cloth will wear simply because a ball is placed on and struck from the same place all the time. We have this issue in our club where the match table has no spots but the other tables do and the match table cloth wears out far quicker for this reason. When it gets bad and the colours start kicking off their spots I take a pack of spots down and place them over the dents and this helps a lot but some dolt always takes them off because it's the 'Match Table' and it shouldn't have any spots some idiot who doesn't the understand basic logic of wear and tear.

[Geoff Large]

if a table Cloth has to last 12 to 24 months then it should be fitted with spots on it .
especially if it has thin match cloth on .

Remember punters do not own the table the club or owner does , if they have spots fitted , and you remove them because you do not like them then you are technically Damaging someone's property
just because you hire that table out for an hour or so does not give you the right to remove the spots , they where fitted for a purpose .

another reason is the black spot is always going to be the first spot area to wear out due to highest point ball to go for .

I have had job's in the past for a re-stretch where I have turned up to re-stretch a bed cloth , only to find the black spot badly worn out and I refuse to re-stretch ,

in fact I ask them to check for this before I travel over .
the other thing to look out for is bad track grooving in the corner pocket areas .
too much undercut angle forces a ball to wear this area out fast too .

it is not unreasonable for a cloth to last the full two years in a club most tournament 30 oz strachan cloths do , but only if if it is fitted with spots and have them replaced if they wear out or someone lifts them off .
it is also not uncommon to have a spot wear through after around 6 months wear if unprotected .
Especially if they line the balls up for practice in a straight line

As I have said in my link above in previous post , the 8mm green spots from amazon are the smallest and thinnest available , but iron them on and bed them in with just a click over the spot ball with a cue ball .
and I swear by them as a good alternative to no spots at all , or or over fitting those USA thick black spots which I agree are useless .

The rings around the spots that appear at a round 2 to 3 inch like a circle , especially on the blue spot area and pink , this is from leaning over from the side resting your palm on the cloth and placing the ball on the spot
but look where your sweaty palm is resting on the cloth , this sweat and wear of placing palm on cloth , has a reaction that causes discoloration to the cloth , left hand placement then right hand placement forms a half circle each side of the spot .
have a look on a well used table to see this ring .
the blue spot is the main one for showing this up .

[pottr]

Yep, done that bit; the guy who's doing it lost it a bit when his wife passed away and snooker's all he lives for so a tough one as I don't think he's quite right nowadays and in his 80's; what can you do as you tell him but he's just not with it.

We had a guy like this in our club and at that age you have to be sensitive... Here's what you do:

Print out and email in his name stating that he's won the Nigerian Lottery and to release the funds into his account you need two sets of photo ID and to stop knocking the balls so hard on the cloth or you'll knock his false teeth down his throat.

I was sceptical at first but it really does work x

[Shockerz]

We had a guy like this in our club and at that age you have to be sensitive... Here's what you do:

Print out and email in his name stating that he's won the Nigerian Lottery and to release the funds into his account you need two sets of photo ID and to stop knocking the balls so hard on the cloth or you'll knock his false teeth down his throat.

I was sceptical at first but it really does work x

That made me chuckle mate; I've been really lucky in my life as I've won the Nigerian Lottery on many occasions and still have most of my teeth.

I guess I'm a bit of a softie and as I've said in previous threads I'm running out of places to bury the bodies so I guess it'll all sort itself out in the long run.