Table maintenance

[philip in china]

You know, Geoff, you should be telling people all the wrong things. That way you would get more work. You could have a sock puppet, Geoff Small, who tells folks to vacuum the cloth, use a garden roller on it etc. etc. You could make millions.

[Geoff Large]

No 10 is a very thin cloth , in normal club playing conditions it would not last no more than 6 months in a club 12 months if it was reserved for match table only with no practice allowed especially aligning the balls up in a straight line for cue ball control , but if only used now and again by one person it may well last for over 3 years .

I have been in the Billiards cue sports trade for nearly 40 years and know what water and dampness put into Wool cloth can do , they do not have heated slates for nothing it is to make sure that the cloth has no moisture in it .
Now I am not being the I know better than you type , and I have no problems with you using a steam iron on your own table , but if others reading this thread think's it is OK then we are going to get problems in club's up and down the Uk thinking it is the norm for a cheap steam iron to be used in place of the proper tool .

this is the same scenario to the starch question , I again have no problems any one using starch on their own tables , but as a fitter I can see problems if a stretch is required .

I think what you have is a cloth unironed is not good to play on , a cloth using a low cost steam iron plays better , but I guarantee a cloth ironed using a heavy Billiard table iron will be much better to play on with no risk of dampness being transferred into the cloth as it is not a steam iron .

your steam iron is only improving the cloth because it is getting tighter and tighter as the Hot steam shrinks the wool based cloth , this will result in the bed cloth having no stretch qualities if a re-stretch or table move is required in the future using the same cloth .when you wash wool in the washing machine it warns you not to put it on a hot wash , because the wool garment will shrink , it is the same process with your steam iron you are shrinking the cloth .
and if you get one of those holes in the plate leak water when you are dry ironing , it will leave a raised thin tram line that the ball will hit , I have seen this on a wool mix pool table cloth so know it can happen . and it took about 6 irons with a normal billiard iron to get it anywhere near flat , in fact it took a week of ironing to get that raised line out of the cloth .

at the end of the day if you are happy using the steam iron on your cloth on your own table , then carry on using it , but by saying it is much better to steam the cloth than not to steam is the wrong information in keeping a Billiard table playing to a high standard , and the right tool although expensive is the better option.

I can only point out the pitfalls of using a steam iron , and it is up to the readers of this thread to decide which option they want to go down , the professional advice or a keen person who is looking for a lower priced option .
I am not having a go , but as Professional billiards fitter , I would like to think all my learnings over the last 40 years are not falling on deaf ears. I am still learning today , I may come across another fitter who uses a different method and I think Wow all these years I have been doing it that way when this way is better .

I can see the benefits of maybe experimenting using starch on a WORN STRETCHED TWICE cloth and if you do not like the results then you have lost nothing anyway as it was due a recover , but a steam iron to me is a no go .

I know that a No 10 recover is around £200 higher in price than a 6811 tournament charged by the top firms , my advice to you would have been go for the 6811 T and buy an iron for the same price as a Number 10 recover , then at a later date if you fancied a recover in No 10 or any make and grade cloth , you will have the right tool to maintain it .

as for a steam iron prolonging the life of a cloth , that is not possible , a ball rolling on cloth wears the cloth out, use wear's it out , just how much use determines the life of a cloth,you use it more the cloth wear's out quicker , you use less and it last's longer, no damping with water , or spraying starch can halt this wear of cloth by use of playing the game. well maybe the starch can slightly halt the wear as you are spraying a hard coat of paste on top of the cloth .
My Car tyres would not last longer if water or starch was sprayed on them as it the contact with the road that wears the rubber tyre out , more miles I do the less the tyre's last , and it is the same with billiard cloth you use it more and it will wear out quicker.
especially around the under side of cushions , the pocket falls and the spot areas .

[Staezione]

I want to believe you Geoff, but then why stays my cloth so good and more important last so long?
When i recover i think i'm putting a hainsworth precision on it. Don't think i will dare to use steam on that cloth.

[philip in china]

I think this is one of the most useful threads on TSF. Thanks again for your input, Geoff. I still think when you retire you should write a book!

I have 2 tables and 2 irons! Here in China I have a 10' Chinese table and use a domestic iron on it. The steam system on the iron is long gone so there is no chance of water getting on the cloth. In Bulgaria I have a full size table and a proper snooker table iron. (It is a Taiwanese clone of a Dowsing). The domestic iron does work but it is a more difficult and slower process than using the big heavy iron. I also think the bigger iron does a better job but the table and cloth there are so vastly superior it is difficult to judge.

[Geoff Large]

That's one way of keeping a cloth tight , the cloth is wool and will shrink if steamed ,
You have to ask yourself this , if using a steam iron is OK , why is it not recommended to do it and why do Qualified billiards fitters not use one ? .

I once recovered a pool table and the owner phoned me up a day later saying he had a ridge in the bed cloth , he had used a steam iron without any steam on but the residue had leaked out of one of the steam holes this had swelled the cloth and produced a ridge in the cloth .

A none steam iron is the type to use and those billiards irons are designed to be heavy for use on a billiard cloth , there is realy no substitute iron to use , a household none steam iron is OK for a pool table but if you are really serious about maintaining your table to a high standard use the iron that is designed for the job and the best is the Dowsing billiard iron , even a broken one put on a gas or electric hob is much better than using a household Domestic iron , at the end of the day the ball has to run smooth on a wool napped cloth .

do not use a steam iron http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Philips-GC...item35d0ad2ff7

if you cannot aford a proper billiard dowsing iron and do not fancy the old thick heavy old type that you put on a gas or electric hob then use an old standard iron like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Old-Morphy...item3389aa9a9a, but you will have tram lines using such a small iron .

here are two types that I recommend one is much better to use than the other guess which one

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Thurston-C...d#ht_621wt_904

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Dowsin...#ht_1480wt_904

[Staezione]

Yes but i'll go very quick with the steam and afterwards again with no steam to instant dry the damp. theni iron again but with the temperature slightly higher.
this i do once in 2 months. The other times i'll just iron without steam but after the "steam session" the cloth looks like brand new also.

[Redphex]

steam button? so you use a steam iron? thought this was considered a no-go.

[Staezione]

Also when i iron the cloth i use the steam button. I make sure the temperature settings is at wool.
Have now 1.5 years the no 10 cloth and still plays like new.
No signs of wearing yet. If it goes on like this i think i can keep this cloth forever.
ps: i play about 3 times a week on it and i have undertable heating like on tele.

[inevermissblue]

Those conditions that you speak of are what you should experience. These previous half a dozen posts made by myself and Geoff were about getting these playing characteristics back from a table cloth. Don't knock it mate, this is how it should be on every table.

[Staezione]

I have a no 10 cloth fitted but when you hit the cueball quite hard or a ball comes quick of the cushion, it's like the cloth is ice. the ball tend to slip for a moment before he starts to roll naturally.
Anyone knows why?
I do iron the cloth sometimes with a normal household iron and must say in the past i've set the temperature a bit high but the cloth is never burned or damaged in any way..

[Geoff Large]

Have you ever examined a no 10 cloth from the world championships , there are more cue stabs in those cloths because the player has no respect for the cloth to last for say a year or so , the shots these professional's make on a table are all money shots and world rankings shots , they are not bothered about the cloth .
the cloth is changed every three days they do not wait for the semi finals , they just change them as the cue stabs get worse.
if they are now leaving the tables for longer then i have not heard about it , it used to be every three days the last time I spoke to one of the fitters who did these tables .
And I use this when people ask about why pro's have no spots , it's because the cloth do not have to last more than three days unlike your club table which has to last 2 years normally . and the white baulk is for TV to show up on the screen , black would not show up ., players normally get them and sell them to the local club , I have fitted some really bad ones with quite a few cue stabs in them .

I would not know what tin foil would do to the playing conditions to a table if placed under the cloth , you would have to find someone who makes it 6ft 1.5 inch wide and 12 foot long , normally they make tin foil in small widths for wrapping the Christmas Turkey in .
I once took a cloth off in a snooker hall in Beeston local to me , Another firm under the owners orders had put some very thin tape over the joints to try and cover the slate joints , but when ironed the tape showed through the cloth , this was because the snooker hall owner used to experiment with things like this , he instructed me to remove it on the next recover .

I once had a guy ask me where the rubber pad was over a snooker slate ? he genuinely thought the slates had a thin rubber pad over them .

the tale of vacuum cleaners pulling filler out of joints is down to the type of filler that was traditionally used back then , Plaster of Paris , with new easy sand car body filler it bonds much better , I still do not recommend using a vacuum cleaner on the tables , but if you get one that has only a small suction , or open the slide on one then I think you may be ok , Henrys and other well know makes of vac are very powerful so avoid these type , so look for a low cost rechargeable type with a wide head as wide as a Brush , make sure there are no sharp edges to the vac head . and only go with the nap the same direction as when you brush a table from Baulk to spot end , you can concentrate on the end cushions area of slate this is where most chalk will end up , but avoid hanging a round those joints with the vac , quickly glide over them .

Buy a good cloth cleaner like this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AMBERSIL-P...#ht_5702wt_955
this type is normally used for cleaning american pool cloth , but also is used on wool napped cloth . Avoid where the seller says brush back and forth , always brush in the nap direction .

a low powered vac is the way to go , as you only require to pick up surface chalk and dust before it gets into the weave , you can drill holes in the pipe work to reduce the suction if it has no slide to open to reduce it .
I can tell when taking cloths off if they have been using a vac . some do use them and never have a problem , it is all down to the type of filler used or how good the joints are in the first place , some tables are that good they have no filler in them , very rare to find one but they do exist .
We as fitters always do not recommend the use of a vac because of the amount of trouble they cause to tables and pulling filler out , but we know people do use them and some without problems.

At the end of the Day the choice is down to you , I would on the next re-cover insist that all the filler is raked out and refilled with a good quality easy sand car body filler , after first levelling and making sure the joints are butted correct , if problems with joints then they may have to feather fill the joint , this is normally done because the last fitter or previous fitters have just sanded the joints way to get level instead of getting them right in the first place , when the slate has been sanded away and you finally get the table level you may find there is a lip on the joint , this has to be feather filled in that you fill and when sanded you can see the low slate with filler on when good as thin as a feather . I had to do one last Friday like that .

[inevermissblue]

I can willingly absorb what you're telling me with regards to the starch only providing a cover to the grease, stopping it from affecting playing conditions. Although i'd like to think that it does actually tackle the grease, as this is what we wanted to address. Which brings me to my next point. I know that it is not recommended to vacuum bed cloth as this removes the filler from slate joins! So...would'nt it be a good idea to produce a tin foil underlay for the bed cloth on the entire surface??? This would allow you to remove as much dirt and dust as possible. Plus it would help to radiate the heat if table heaters were used, plus it would protect the slate joins!
Given what you have said about the properties of starch, i think that something else needs to be found to actually address the grease which affects the spin on ageing tables. From new to post stretch!
In tournaments they usually re-cover the table for semi-final or final say at the crucible. This tells me that they know that the table will not perform with the present cloth. Considering the cloths are always brand new, what could they be concerned about??? Well it has to be grease as thats the only thing to develop. It seems as though people would rather accept its arrival than try to remove it!
We have just brought some of that Table cleaning spray so we will try it on another table and make the comparison!

[Geoff Large]

Ah well there we have to disagree , because starch is not a cleaning agent so will not remove grease it will only form a stiff cover over it which is what you are doing , unlike acetone type cleaning fluids which do dissolve grease to the surface and this can then be brushed off . we use acetone to clean the old baulk line off before a re-stretch .
Most cans of cloth cleaner have some sort of acetone agent in its cleaning action diluted down a bit from pure acetone because it will make you feel drowsy if it was 100% .

In some ways you can also describe Starch as a glue paste if mixed thick enough with warm water you can actually stick wallpaper on the wall with it .
I would not recommend using it on wool based cloth with nap or fluffy weave because all it will do is paste the fibres together making it stiff .
Now for the american pool cloth which is much thinner cloth not napped , and has a reputation of going slack and wrinkles appearing around the pockets and the bed cloth becoming very loose , there is a call for using a starch that will stiffen the cloth and prevent it from wrinkling up .

I do not have a problem with anyone using it on their own tables after the cloth is past it sell by date .
And I still stick by what I said about the starch not being able to reform the cloth back from the worn out state to make it last for months longer than if it was just left .
I would say the ball reaction is just gripping the starch coating on the worn cloth and therefore you are experiencing some sort of better ball control , but it will not miraculously make the cloth as new . it will remain worn especially around the ball track marks into the corner pockets , it will not thicken the cloth up but will just coat it in a starch .
and if you spray the cushion cloth then the rubber is also restricted by the stiffening of the cloth that it is wrapped in .
Starch has been around in use for stiffening garments for years , I have used it on American pool tables for over 15 years , but never used it on napped cloth especially pure new wool based cloth.

if you look on TV and look very close around the middle pocket falls of the star tables you will see some light staining around the falls picked up by the cameras HD sometimes as a yellow staining , this is where the fitter has dampened the cloth by damp hands or by water spray to shrink the cloth to form better using the iron to do the shrinking ,
when the iron hits the damp cloth it is like boiling or washing wool on a hot wash , it will shrink .

As I have said some fitter may have got the idea it was starch they used or decided to use starch in place of water and then decided to spray the whole bed cloth in it too .
I and the manufacturer of the cloth see no reason to use starch on a napped pure wool cloth .
if it was a good thing to do , all us Billiard fitters would be using it . don't forget I have been using it for 15 years on american pool tables but never on wool napped Billiards cloth.
Try using the spray on cloth cleaner in place of the starch and see if that makes a difference, I have been informed by Pool players that is does. but then again the average life span of a pool cloth on UK pool tables is just 6 months taking into account winter and summer leagues

As for a richer colour , of course the cloth has taken on a different hue , you have just coated it in a thin coat of starch that is not going to evaporate , much like a coat of varnish would bring out the grain on wood , the starch may have a little effect of changing the colour to a slightly darker shade , but you place a square of brand new cloth on top and see what new cloth shade should really be .

I think some players expect too much out of the cloth these days , they see tables on TV which have a re-cover every three days playing faultless and good cue ball control on thin new number 10 Strachan cloth , table in clubs have to last at least 2 years and it is normal process for the cloth to drop off as it ages , you may have found something that brings a little of the life back into the cloth coating it in Starch , but it also has it's drawbacks and pitfalls that I hope I have explained like cushion cloth stiffening resulting in less re-bound , stiff cloth that if requiring a stretch it is not going to be possible . also clumping and binding of chalk dust within the weave , these are things I have noticed on pool table's sprayed with starch on . Ask any fitter who the worst customers are for complaining about cloth speed and rebound values and they will all say semi pro's to the better players in clubs , the main 95% of players do not even notice such things and never complain .
My main complaint I hear every week almost is , we want our table to play like those on TV , well I say buy one of those star tables then because this table is never going to play like it, and I bet most fitters on here have heard this too .

[inevermissblue]

I think we are on two different wave lengths here! I read previously that you say it wont bring the cloth back to life, and will remain worn. I have do disagree...As the cloth has evidently got a more richer colour to it now, and now feels very clean and slick to the touch than before the treatment. Also you mentioned ball control. The ball control on what you would call 'a good old fashioned brushed, padded and ironed table' significantly loses its basic ball control properties!!! This alone was the purpose of my investigation. The need to tackle the grease and grime that accumulates into a bed cloth.
There are so many aspects of the game that appear to be overlooked to a certain degree. This all started with an experience i encountered on a 'good old fashioned cleaned table' which to my horror, had lost all aspects of ball control needed to play the game to a basic degree. As it was far too grippy. Making it impossible to hold for a black with bottom from a red say a foot away from the corner bag shooting from the baulk. The cueball always followed onto the top cushion. I was beside myself with amazement that this shot was no longer available to play!!! So this is where my initial enquiries began.
So this tells me that a recently streched, regularly cleaned table is ever more subject to the grease build up. Then by the sounds of it is just being re-distributed by the table iron. This practise alone should be deemed as neglectful. People just seem to be oblivious to this or at most choose to overlook it, some may even start to re-evaluate their own game to accommodate! which is ridiculous! I hope that you can now understand what im trying to say???
Its the grease that seems to be tackled by using the starch. Traditional cleaning regimes do not even address this. Please bear in mind that the table in question had nap, looked clean but was too grippy, taking away imparted spin 'instantly'!!!

[Geoff Large]

But it will not replace nap on a worn out cloth which is the basis of good cue ball control , a smooth cloth will skid a decent napped cloth will grip the cue ball better. This is well documented by Professional players .

another point I would like to point out is the starch residue sticking to the iron , make sure any starch is well brushed into the cloth and not left on top for the iron to glaze it to the base of the iron plate . as this will cause problems to ironing other tables especially new clothed tables if starch residue is still on the sole plate.

I cannot disagree the fact that you have found the cloth to play better in your club , but take notice of what I am saying about the other aspects of the game and mostly in the track marks and the control of the cue ball .
I know for a fact that you will not get any more life out of the cloth , once worn it is worn and cannot be made as new by just spraying starch onto it , the starch may make it play better , but it will still look worn out .

I have had many comments that a new cloth has much better cue ball control qualities than worn cloth , I am not a player as such although I do understand screw back side swerve and forward kick techniques to the art of controlling a cue ball for better position for the next line up of the next ball to be potted.

neither will the track marks in the corner pockets be revitalised to the same thickness of a new cloth so I just cannot see the basis of the claim that it can prolong the life of a worn out cloth .
once the corner track marks are half way through worn of the thickness of the cloth , there is a danger of it wearing through to the slate in a very short time as the weave is disintegrating or for a much better description falling apart as the weave is so worn it cannot hold together much more , spraying starch onto this area may bond it for a few more hours , but I doubt,t it would put weeks or even months of wear back into the cloth .

I have experimented with starch on cloths , especially some low priced all man made fibre american pool cloths , and found it an aid to help form the cloth into the corner and middle pocket falls and help stop the cloth slackening off , other good quality cloths do not require the aid of starch to stop slackening off as we get them tight especially the pure new wool napped cloths as used on Snooker / billiard tables .

I think if you put it to the vote , more players would prefer to play on Brand new recovered tables and just stretched tables rather than a worn out cloth sprayed with Starch .

by all means if you are gaining some sort of better playing on a worn out all wool stretched cloth using this starch , then carry on using it , but I know the control of a cue ball is much better on a new or part worn cloth than one sprayed with Starch .
Also keep the starch away from the cushion cloth as stiff cushion cloth will lessen the bounce from the rubber .

Do not confuse ball travel distance on a worn out cloth being better than a new cloth as it is well known that no resistance in the instance of no nap will allow for a faster table and therefore much greater distance of ball travel , that is why they produce match cloths with very short thin nap so that you get the greater ball travel from newly fitted cloth , When I talk about cue ball control it is the initial swerve or back kick or forward kick on the cue balls reaction on the new cloth , you should be able to turn a ball on a new cloth by applying the right stab on the ball much better with nap under the ball , rather than a worn out one.
you may get greater distance off the rubber on a worn out cloth , but doubt you will get better cue ball control .

Just good old fashioned brushing and ironing on a regular basis , the recommend time is every 10 hours of use , brush napper and iron , At my local club the match table gets ironed every day
as well as the normal Table maintenance , the Match table should also get an iron before the match nights .
Do this and the table plays much better than un-brushed and un-ironed greasy finger marked tables , cleaning balls should be done too , there are good ball polishing products out there .