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DIY table recovering

Postby Saintmarsy

I've managed to get myself an old slate bed 5ft snooker table for my lad for Christmas, it's sound but the cloth looks original and I'd guess the table is 30+ years old

I'd like to recover it but would do it myself if I did, my question is should I attempt this myself with no experience?

Whats the usual pitfalls if attempting this

Any advice appreciated

Re: DIY table recovering

Postby rekoons

Hi Saint,

Recovering is not straight forward, look up some video's of snooker table recovering to get a sense of the scale of the task.

Disassembling the side rails and pockets and removing the staples to remove the cloth is probably doable.

But installing a new cloth is probably best left to someone who's done it already. The difficulty is to get it stretched out enough and even enough across the whole surface. Around the corners, and especially the middle pockets are most difficult. if not stretched even all over, you'll get a table with different zones and wrinkles where the balls will roll faster, slower or veer off.

On the other hand, it's a 5 footer, so you might as well give it a try, see how it goes, and if not good enough, learn from the experience, disassemble again and try again?

If still not satisfactorily, you could contact someone with experience, follow and learn from him, and then maybe you'll be able to do it yourself for the next recovery?

Let us know how it went.