Refelting Your Pool Table
Thursday, February 2
Can you do it yourself? What does it take to refelt a pool table? Until recently the world of pool retained it secrets and had been a mystery. Those who were good players or table mechanics kept their knowledge to themselves to protect their livelihood. The Information Technology era has made it profitable for players and table mechanics to share their knowledge and allow the average person to benefit from their knowledge.
So what should you look for if you want to save some money and undertake the task of recovering your own pool table? There are three factors that are going to make the task much easier and raise you level of success mainly:-
- The quality of materials being used
- The correct set of tools.
- Lastly is a good set of instructions.
So how do I know if I am getting good materials? Locally this is much easier than on the Internet, but even there, there are ways to identify a reputable dealer for your purchases. Here are a few things to consider.
First if the price seems low there will always be a reason. It may be old cloth, materials from odd lots or even overseas material that will not have quality controls found in the US. If you find a website that looks good and the prices seem reasonable. If they provide a contact method send them an email and ask a technical or service question. See what kind of response you get and how responsive they are. This will give you an idea how responsive they will be if you have a problem later when something goes wrong or you have another question.
Cloth manufacturers are pretty consistent in the prices they sell to wholesalers so if you find someone selling way below the average price beware! Finding good instructions may also take a little searching. Many sites taunt instructions but many turn out to be little more than a few penciled pictures and less than a page of how to cover the bed. What I recommend is detailed step by step instructions with actual pictures. Good instruction will almost assure success, but if you have additional questions look for a site that will provide email or phone support they are out there.
What about tools? Well most of what you need is readily available in the average home but there are some specialty tools that can make the job much easier:- Staple pullers, feather strip removers, specialty razors and pounding blocks. These sound simple but having them can make a job go so much smoother and reduce some mistakes that can happen when using an incorrect tool. Look for a recovering kit that contains these types of tools and your job just got easier.
I hope this helps in your search for those of you thinking of refelting your own billiard tables.
posted by Raphael @ 10:51,
