I am a snooker novice so please excuse some of my ingnorance here. I just bought a 9' Olhausen Portland series "Blackhawk" with the accu-fast L shaped cushion rubber, and with smaller snooker pockets. I know at least 10' would have been a better choice but room constraints dictated a 9' max. I noticed after the dealers table mechanic left that there were slight distortions (ripples looking down the length of the rail) in the cushions. Also, there are humps the are on top of the cushion where it turns and goes in toward the pocket. It looks almost as if someone had the bottom of their thumb pressed up under the cloth and eighth of inch or so.
I called and complained and this time the owner/table mech came out to fix it. I did not stay in the room to watch (my mistake). I did not want to make him nervous. He worked on the table for a little over an hour. I know he had all of the rails off but only cloth off of one cushion. He showed me a tiny piece of rubber debri that had been left on the top of the rubber when they had originally put the cloth on the cushion. It was another bump on top of the cushion that I had pointed out when showing him the other defects listed above. He fixed that by removing it and reinstalling the cloth on that rail cushion. He left and I know I should have told him then that I was still not satisfied with the work but I thought maybe I was just being too picky. So I drove up to Vancouve BC and took a tour of many different snooker tables with the president of the Seniors Snooker League. After viewing those tables, I concluded that I am not being to picky...all the cushions were perfectly straight...no humps nor ripples.
My next step was to call Donny Olhausen at the Olhausen factory. He told me that you cannot get a worsted wool cloth to fit the snooker cushions without getting some distortion and that it needs to be an non-worsted wool. So Donny calls the dealer to correct the situation and then the owner/dealer calls me to say that he put a non-worsted cloth (Championship Invitional )on the table and that it is not causing the problem...I cannot feel any directional nap in this cloth and it looks and feels much rougher than any worsted cloths that I have seen...it plays very slow....I am told it is a low end entry level cloth. Now the owner/ dealer/mechanic wants to come back and re-cloth the whole table and all of the cushions...start from scratch so to speak...
My questions here: First is it really true that you cannot use a worsted cloth on and accu-fast snooker cushion ?
Second: What would be the difference in feel and play using a worsted cloth like Simonis 860 vs the Simonis 4000 snooker cloth that has the dirctional nap ? I only ask this because I don't want to deal with ironing the cloth. Simonis 4000 here in the US only comes in traditional green and my decor dictates using a burgandy color.
Third: Am I off base too far in thinking that I could play snooker on a cloth like the 860 and then occasionlly play on a traditional snooker table without feeling like I was playing an entirely different game ? Are there any snooker players or mechanics out there that have played snooker on worsted wool cloths and what are your opinons ? Thanks for taking time to answer this lengthy post :smile:
I called and complained and this time the owner/table mech came out to fix it. I did not stay in the room to watch (my mistake). I did not want to make him nervous. He worked on the table for a little over an hour. I know he had all of the rails off but only cloth off of one cushion. He showed me a tiny piece of rubber debri that had been left on the top of the rubber when they had originally put the cloth on the cushion. It was another bump on top of the cushion that I had pointed out when showing him the other defects listed above. He fixed that by removing it and reinstalling the cloth on that rail cushion. He left and I know I should have told him then that I was still not satisfied with the work but I thought maybe I was just being too picky. So I drove up to Vancouve BC and took a tour of many different snooker tables with the president of the Seniors Snooker League. After viewing those tables, I concluded that I am not being to picky...all the cushions were perfectly straight...no humps nor ripples.
My next step was to call Donny Olhausen at the Olhausen factory. He told me that you cannot get a worsted wool cloth to fit the snooker cushions without getting some distortion and that it needs to be an non-worsted wool. So Donny calls the dealer to correct the situation and then the owner/dealer calls me to say that he put a non-worsted cloth (Championship Invitional )on the table and that it is not causing the problem...I cannot feel any directional nap in this cloth and it looks and feels much rougher than any worsted cloths that I have seen...it plays very slow....I am told it is a low end entry level cloth. Now the owner/ dealer/mechanic wants to come back and re-cloth the whole table and all of the cushions...start from scratch so to speak...
My questions here: First is it really true that you cannot use a worsted cloth on and accu-fast snooker cushion ?
Second: What would be the difference in feel and play using a worsted cloth like Simonis 860 vs the Simonis 4000 snooker cloth that has the dirctional nap ? I only ask this because I don't want to deal with ironing the cloth. Simonis 4000 here in the US only comes in traditional green and my decor dictates using a burgandy color.
Third: Am I off base too far in thinking that I could play snooker on a cloth like the 860 and then occasionlly play on a traditional snooker table without feeling like I was playing an entirely different game ? Are there any snooker players or mechanics out there that have played snooker on worsted wool cloths and what are your opinons ? Thanks for taking time to answer this lengthy post :smile:
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