Pool Table Maintenance
If you buy a pool table, you can have it in immaculate condition for decades or it can become knackered and unplayable in a couple of years. It’s up to how you maintain and treat it. The most important thing to maintain is the cloth play surface. It makes sense; it’s what the ball rolls on, it’s the most delicate part of the construction – thankfully it’s also simple to take care of.
Follow these tips to keep your pool table in tip-top shape!
Brushing Cloth
Beyond dislodging and removing chalk, dust and debris brushing your cloth is important for the playability of the felt. Particularly for a British pool table with a napped cloth. British pool table cloth has a directional nap to it (learn more about that here) that becomes fainter as it’s interacted with more. Take a brush and gently drag it from the top (the baulk link where you play the cue ball from) to the bottom (where you rack the balls). Brush in gentle, straight strokes the full length – use the bristles to shift any debris that wedged between the cushions and felt. Once you’re done any detritus should be collected at one end ready for the next step.
If your table has an American cloth – most obvious from the lack of nap and woven feeling – you don’t need to worry about brushing directionally and can just focus on gathering any dust up.
Vacuum Cloth
Pool table felt can be delicate, so you want to put your hoover on a low setting before doing this. A small handheld one is ideal. Gently hoover the cloth directionally and carefully. This can get rid of any dust or chalk you’ve brushed up but can also help reach spots the brush just couldn’t hit. This is totally safe to do but be conscious of dragging the edge of the nozzle across the cloth too hard at a steep angle.
Cleaning Cloth
Disaster struck and someone’s spilled onto your lovely home pool table. Don’t panic! Quickly get some absorbent cloth – kitchen roll for example – and soak up the excess liquid. You don’t want to dab it through the cloth so instead just lay these disposable towels over the spill – let them absorb as much as they can and replace when soaked through.
Once the excess liquid is gone now get a proper towel. Wet it and carefully dab the stain. Don’t be rough with it and avoid scrubbing the spill in further. Once you’ve got the most of it switch out that wet towel for a dry one. Same principle – gently dab up the moisture. If the stain won’t budge, you’ll likely need to use a proper pool table cloth cleaner. We include Ambersil with our pool tables which is a cloth cleaner with a specific formula to treat baize/pool table cloth/felt.
Avoiding A Problem
The easiest (and cheapest) way of maintaining your pool table is to avoid damage to begin with. Particularly when it comes to spills. A light vinyl cover at minimum but a heavy duty one will prevent all but the worst disasters. Pool table diners are convertible pool tables & dining tables – they come with solid wood/glass tops. These solid tops offer a lot of protection but there’s still a seam where the tops meet where an errant spill could leak through to the cloth. We recommend laying down a light cover under the tops just to catch any spill and making it easy to dispose of.
Beyond spills the other danger to your cloth is miscues. The cue tip slipping off the ball and digging into (and potentially ripping) the delicate felt. This issue isn’t just down to human error or a skill issue – keep your cue nice and evenly chalked to reduce miscues.
Repair
If the worst comes to worst, your pool table has faced spills and rips and doesn’t play well. It’s time to get it recovered by professionals. At Home Pool Tables we offer a recovering service where we’ll come out and properly recondition and repair your table. It doesn’t even have to have been purchased from us.
If your pool table is facing heavy use or likely to be used by children it might be better to opt for a more durable cloth.
While you’re at it why not spring for a different colour or cloth to maximise the value for money?
