Any Reason Not to Use a Brush or a Vac With a Brush Attachment on Cloth?

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CaptainBly

Registered
I use this vacuum on my table with Simonis 860HR. Been using it for 3 years now. Gets play everyday. gets vacuumed once a week. Yes I use the brush attachment then the narrow attachment for under the rails. Has done no damage to the cloth in 3 years. Your mileage may vary but this works for my table.
dirtdevil.com

Scorpion+ Hand Vacuum

The new Dirt Devil Scorpion Plus Hand Vac delivers Upright Power with Hand Vac convenience. It gives you long lasting performance so you can tackle the biggest messes. It includes a motorized Pivoting Stair and Upholstery Tool that lets you easily maneuver your way through every corner of your...
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RT Ford

RT Ford

Well-known member
CaptainBly said:
I use this vacuum on my table with Simonis 860HR. Been using it for 3 years now. Gets play everyday. gets vacuumed once a week. Yes I use the brush attachment then the narrow attachment for under the rails. Has done no damage to the cloth in 3 years. Your mileage may vary but this works for my table.
dirtdevil.com

Scorpion+ Hand Vacuum

The new Dirt Devil Scorpion Plus Hand Vac delivers Upright Power with Hand Vac convenience. It gives you long lasting performance so you can tackle the biggest messes. It includes a motorized Pivoting Stair and Upholstery Tool that lets you easily maneuver your way through every corner of your...
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A vacuum with low suction. Very good.
 
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garczar

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Using an old-school brush on worsted wool is a waste of time. All it does is move dirt from one place to another. Place i go to uses a hand held Oreck with a 15" horsehair brush attac. and it works perfect. NO damage at all to the cloth. Using a simonis x1 between vac's also helps keep them clean. The amount of chalk dust that gizmo pulls up is pretty amazing. I've heard bad takes on the X1 but usually that's because they are used wrong. Light pressure and speed is what's required. Don't push it down hard into the cloth surface.
 
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ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
garczar said:
Using an old-school brush on worsted wool is a waste of time. All it does is move dirt from one place to another. Place i go to uses a hand held Oreck with a 15" horsehair brush attac. and it works perfect. NO damage at all to the cloth. Using a simonis x1 between vac's also helps keep them clean. The amount of chalk dust that gizmo pulls up is pretty amazing. I've heard bad takes on the X1 but usually that's because they are used wrong. Light pressure and speed is what's required. Don't push it down hard into the cloth surface.
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I started this thread and as of last week I now feel I have the perfect setup - a Makita cordless backpack vac with a 10” soft horsehair brush attachment. It now takes me less than 2 minutes to do a complete job per table, less than 20 minutes to do all 10 of our tables, which I do every other morning and every morning if we have heavy play.

Not having the hassle of dealing with the power cord while moving around the pool room and having to hold the shop vac in one hand has made all the difference when vacuuming 10 tables.

Obviously this would not be practical for home table usage due to the $ price of the Makita unit when considering the minimal time it takes to vacuum a single table, but I would highly recommend it for maintaining multiple tables in a pool room.
 
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ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
realkingcobra said:
No, 1000's of tables, but I also owned 3 pool rooms as well😉so I'm speaking with experience!
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The only true way to know whether there would be any long-term cloth speed and cloth wear difference between using a vacuum with a brush attachment versus using a vacuum without a brush attachment would be to have two identical tables in a pool room, both recovered with the same cloth at the same time, and over a long period of time vacuuming one with a brush attachment and one without a brush attachment. You’d also have to assume that both tables had close to the same amount of cumulative play on them.

Let’s be honest, that’s not likely to ever happen, so I’m guessing we will never know a precise answer to this question.
 
boogieman

boogieman

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping.
ChrisinNC said:
Let’s be honest, that’s not likely to ever happen, so I’m guessing we will never know a precise answer to this question.
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What's to answer? If your cloth is stretched correctly it's not going to do enough harm to even consider.

Many pool halls, thousands of home table owners vacuum their cloth. I've always heard the "old wives tales" about how vacuuming is bad but I've seen pool halls that used hand held dirt devils with beater bars after every customer, electrolux vacuums, "roombas," shop vacs, etc. Never have I ever seen evidence of it hurting the cloth. If it was gonna happen it would have by now. I challenge you to find one post of damage from a vacuum online. Does it wear some? Sure, but having a clean table is worth a possibility you might get a few months less out of cloth. Nobody wants to look like they gave Papa Smurf a handy j. Nobody wants their clothes filthy from playing. Nobody wants filth all over the balls etc. Not vacuuming isn't really an option.

Getting chalk dust into the air is a legit health hazard. How many dust clouds have you seen due to brushing the table? I'd guess there may have been some old rack boys/men that had a hard time breathing later in life. Smoking was common, so who could say but it's possible.

On an un-vacuumed table, does the chalk underneath wear the cloth out faster? We know chalk has silica in it and creates friction.

How precise do you need to get to understand a vacuum ain't gonna harm a pool table? I mean, scientifically sure it will, but in the real world playing on a clean cloth is worth the minute wear, and it might increase cloth life since there's not chalk underneath rubbing the cloth from the bottom. It could be a neat experiment but the variables would be difficult to control.
 
C

ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
boogieman said:
What's to answer? If your cloth is stretched correctly it's not going to do enough harm to even consider.

Many pool halls, thousands of home table owners vacuum their cloth. I've always heard the "old wives tales" about how vacuuming is bad but I've seen pool halls that used hand held dirt devils with beater bars after every customer, electrolux vacuums, "roombas," shop vacs, etc. Never have I ever seen evidence of it hurting the cloth. If it was gonna happen it would have by now. I challenge you to find one post of damage from a vacuum online. Does it wear some? Sure, but having a clean table is worth a possibility you might get a few months less out of cloth. Nobody wants to look like they gave Papa Smurf a handy j. Nobody wants their clothes filthy from playing. Nobody wants filth all over the balls etc. Not vacuuming isn't really an option.

Getting chalk dust into the air is a legit health hazard. How many dust clouds have you seen due to brushing the table? I'd guess there may have been some old rack boys/men that had a hard time breathing later in life. Smoking was common, so who could say but it's possible.

On an un-vacuumed table, does the chalk underneath wear the cloth out faster? We know chalk has silica in it and creates friction.

How precise do you need to get to understand a vacuum ain't gonna harm a pool table? I mean, scientifically sure it will, but in the real world playing on a clean cloth is worth the minute wear, and it might increase cloth life since there's not chalk underneath rubbing the cloth from the bottom. It could be a neat experiment but the variables would be difficult to control.
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Vacuuming versus not vacuuming was never the question I posed, and I agree with you on all those points. The question I was asking is whether there would be any difference between vacuuming with a brush attachment versus vacuuming without a brush attachment, over the long term life of the cloth, particularly as it relates to ball speed.
 
RT Ford

RT Ford

Well-known member
realkingcobra said:
No, 1000's of tables, but I also owned 3 pool rooms as well😉so I'm speaking with experience!
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1000's of tables? Tell ya what...take a really powerful vacuum (no brush) and use it on the same table every couple of days for a year and get back with me.
 
realkingcobra

realkingcobra

Well-known member
Silver Member
ChrisinNC said:
The only true way to know whether there would be any long-term cloth speed and cloth wear difference between using a vacuum with a brush attachment versus using a vacuum without a brush attachment would be to have two identical tables in a pool room, both recovered with the same cloth at the same time, and over a long period of time vacuuming one with a brush attachment and one without a brush attachment. You’d also have to assume that both tables had close to the same amount of cumulative play on them.

Let’s be honest, that’s not likely to ever happen, so I’m guessing we will never know a precise answer to this question.
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The truth is in how clean the slate is when the cloth gets removed. If there's visible dust on the slate, that dust is sandpaper on the back side of the cloth, wearing it out from the bottom up. Removing the dust/grit/dirt, IS the whole point of using a vacuum with a brush, without a brush any plastic attachment is going to be rubbing the cloth and leaving rub marks on it. And, when you use the attachment I showed you, brushing it sideways on the cue ball burn marks when breaking, helps to pick up the threads from being matted down from the cue ball burn.
 
T

tableroll

Rolling Thunder
Silver Member
ChrisinNC said:
I’ve been told by a knowledgeable colleague, who has owned/operated a pool room for 30+ years to never use any type of brush on pool table cloth, regardless of whether it’s a hand brush or a brush attachment on the end of a vac – not a rotating brush.

Anyone here have any thoughts / expertise on this topic as to how a brush would detrimentally affect how Simonis 860 would perform / play over the long term? I’ve always found a brush attachment on a shop vac does a great job on our tables, not only sucking up the chalk, but dissipating the noticeable chalk marks.

We’re getting all our tables recovered soon and considering eliminating the brush from the vac as well as use of a table brush between vacuums, to see if it results in any difference in how the tables play over the long term.
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How could a gentle brush and suction from a vacuum do any harm? Look at what happens when balls are jumped. During the break. Drawing the cue ball. A great amount of force. Don't buy it that a vacuum hurts the cloth in any way shape or form. It hurts revenue generation for other products, yes.
 
gregcantrall

gregcantrall

Center Ball
Silver Member
boogieman said:
Good point on the dust. I have a cover but I don't use it. If I had a cover on I'd probably not play as often. There's something nice about just walking to the table and playing without having to unfold a cover. Folding and unfolding that cover seems too much like work! :eek::)
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I consider it part of my fitness workout. 😉 No no , wait it's a way to show respect to the pool Gawds. 🤷‍♂️ okay the truth is Bat Shit.....no really I could have bats in the shop at night.
 
Lawnboy77

Lawnboy77

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
gregcantrall said:
I consider it part of my fitness workout. 😉 No no , wait it's a way to show respect to the pool Gawds. 🤷‍♂️ okay the truth is Bat Shit.....no really I could have bats in the shop at night.
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Reminds me of the night that I forgot to cover the table and one of the 4 light (Tiffany style) shades came apart at one of the soldered joints and landed on the table. It made a small cut in the cloth, but no damage to the slate. It was a terrible feeling to wake up to.
 
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garczar

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Zerksies said:
I’ve heard arguments of vacuuming the plaster out of the seems between the slates.
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It would take one hellaciously stout vacuum to do that. Most of the smaller models used to do tables do not generate those Linda Lovelace levels of suction. ;)
 
Zerksies

Zerksies

Well-known member
garczar said:
It would take one hellaciously stout vacuum to do that. Most of the smaller models used to do tables do not generate those Linda Lovelace levels of suction. ;)
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I thought it was bullshit too. I vacuumed daily and the cloth was changed yearly And the table mechanic didn’t bitch.
 
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