Diamond tables - black marks on balls

Ive tried several things to no avail, thats some heavily dyed leather. Anyone that's fixed the prob please let me know.

Deep down I've always thought they do it on purpose so ppl buy their ball polisher
 
black marks on balls

The black marks are from excess dye in the leather'. Use alcohol based hand sanitizer and lots of elbow grease on a %100 cotton towel....it will take a few rounds of this treatment to remove all the access dye, you will notice the access dye on the towel getting lesser...after several rounds use mink oil to seal it up'
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Enjoy!
Rob.M
 
Jack Justis said:
I don't have an extra set laying around but I'll let Greg know you have the answer to correct the problem.
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Thank you Jack. There will be a set on the way soon. If I solve the problem and end up getting some business then I will ship some jelly your way. If I can't then I will update this thread with my failure so you can gloat about it.
 
black marks

there is a product called clear lac made by lci which is a leather finish coating that is laquer based that will solve the problem just cover the cloth with a towel or remove the pockets and spray not a big deal. All black leather dye tends to rub off if its not coated.
 
I have a Kim Steel table with drop pockets. They are not leather, but plastic I guess. I get black smudges on my balls all teh time and it gets annoying. How do you stop that?
 
I wish you had posted this sooner. I have a thirty year old GC1and I used Varathane on the balls.
Worst part of it is, THE BALLS ARE STUCK TO THE CLOTH!!!!!!!!!!:D:D:D
 
Black marks on balls

JB Cases said:
As I said Jack I don't have the pockets so I don't know how they are done. However Sterling sells leather pockets that come from China that don't put marks on the balls.

Send me a set of Diamond pockets and I will solve the issue within a week. You can bet on it.
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Well, you have had the pockets for almost 3 months.

It would be nice to know what you did to solve the problem.
 
Jack Justis said:
Well, you have had the pockets for almost 3 months.

It would be nice to know what you did to solve the problem.
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I do not have any pockets. I told Diamond what I was going to do and suggested to them that they find someone stateside to do it and they did.

They said that they found someone to get them a set of pockets done in time for the Mosconi cup. You should ask them if the pockets worked for that event.

I am waiting on pockets to be sent to me but perhaps the problem is now solved.

I was able to make veg tan leather black and highly resistant to marking the balls. it was done by using vinegaroon to dye the leather.

anything else about leather working that I can teach you?

:-)
 
I can relate to the MEK melting plastic. I was using it to take some glue off from a plastic part and wound up having to throw it away away due to the MEK melting a hole through it.

I found the point about not wanting to fix the problem in order to sell more ball polishers very interesting. However, I don't think anyone would risk jeopardizing their business by doing something like this. I do wish they could come down on their price a little. Would love to have one. I do get black marks from a GCIII, which is at least 25 yrs old. Seems to be just one pocket. It may be a deteriorating problem.

I play on a Diamond also, haven't noticed any problems. If I was buying a new table it definitely would be a Diamond.

Great post Jay!
 
I heard that Diamond must have used a cheap dye. Anyone have any ideas about what could be used to scrub this s h i t off my Diamond pockets.

How about these recommendations?:




Use a razor, fine-grit sandpaper or a stiff wire brush to scrape the top layer of the leather. Not only will this remove any protective top coatings that may have been applied to the leather after the dye, it will physically remove the top portion of leather, and along with it much of the dye. Doing this will, however, roughen the surface of the leather, and should be avoided on excessively thin pieces so as to avoid scraping a hole in the material.

2


Dampen a cloth with denatured alcohol and rub it on the dyed leather. This will remove much of the stain, but only if the dye originally used was alcohol-based. Do not to soak the leather with the alcohol, as doing so will damage it. Use as little as possible to remove the stain, then rinse it in water and apply neatsfoot oil or another leather conditioner to the material to restore the natural oils removed by the alcohol. Because leather is a natural material, you will probably not be able to get all of the stain out with this method and may be left with a splotchy result.

3


Wipe down the leather with lacquer thinner in the same manner as the denatured alcohol if the alcohol proves ineffective at removing the stain. Lacquer thinner will work on different dyes than will denatured alcohol, but carries the same set of drawbacks: the dye may not ever fully come out, and the leather will be dried out and damaged to some extent as the lacquer thinner removes its natural oil content.

4


Soak the material in a very weak solution of bleach and water. This will get rid of the dye stain, but will also turn the material itself a pale gray. This method should be saved for extreme cases, as the bleach will do significant damage to the leather itself. After soaking the leather, rinse it well in water and apply several coats of leather conditioner to help restore some of the natural oils.

5


Dye over the entire piece of leather with a darker color if none of the other techniques prove effective at removing the unwanted dye to your satisfaction. While this will not remove the stain, it will effectively mask it, which is the only available option if solvents and physical removal of the top layer of leather do not work.
 
I'll second the remark about the Olhausen "rattle" I'm playing on them now and I would gladly put up with Diamond black marks. Also occasional play on a Connelly, it also leaves marks from the leather pockets and worse will spit out a dead center ball.
 
I tried hand sanitizer, alcohol and numerous other things that have been suggested here. They worked, but only temporarily. What I finally did, was get some undyed large pieces of leather, about a 1/4 " thick, cut them to size and double sided taped them to the original pockets. At first, after a week or so they would come loose from the movement of the balls hitting them. What I had did when I cut the pieces was make them long enough to go down into the pocket area to where the track starts. So I shortened them to about 4 or 5 inches deep. That way there isn't any loose leather. I tape them with 3 strips of tape all the way across horizontally. I still get a few marks, but nothing like I use to. They have been on now for at least 6 months and haven't came loose. And if they do, I've got plenty of double sided tape. I bought the heaviest duty double sided tape I could find. For the leather I don't go over the top just inside the pocket, covering the entire back of the pocket.
Another thing I was told is you can take a piece of simonis or any cloth and tape it to the pocket. Haven't done it so I don't know if it works for sure. It seems like it would , but I don't know if I would want cloth up over the rim of the pocket.
You could try it taped inside or over the top rim.
Maybe this info will help somebody because I definetly know how much of a pain in the a$$ it is.
 
black spots

I have a VIP Brunswich made around 1969 and had the same problem with black spot on the balls. I got busy one day and washed the Plastic /rubber pockets with 409, then rinsed them with hot water on a rag to get any 409residue off. Then I used spray Pledge Furniture Wax, a good coat of wax let it dry for 30 minutes and then buffed it off. This left the pockets very smooth and no more marks.
What ever you try, good luck. Noboby likes dirty balls.

Dale
 
JB Cases said:
II was able to make veg tan leather black and highly resistant to marking the balls. it was done by using vinegaroon to dye the leather.

anything else about leather working that I can teach you?

:-)
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You bragged loudly about being able to solve the problem in less than a week, guaranteed.

I was hoping that you would be able to teach all of us something but you failed miserably.

Highly resistant to marking is not the same as no marking.

Making promises and not keeping them is about like welching on a bet I'd say.
 
Jack Justis said:
You bragged loudly about being able to solve the problem in less than a week, guaranteed.

I was hoping that you would be able to teach all of us something but you failed miserably.

Highly resistant to marking is not the same as no marking.

Making promises and not keeping them is about like welching on a bet I'd say.
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Oh I solved it. It took me hitting the leather at break speed repeatedly before the tiniest smudge appeared. But since diamond said they found someone to do what I suggested and since they didn't send me the pockets I quit experimenting to get to zero marks.

What is your problem Jack? Does it upset you that I figured something out to do with working leather that you didn't know how to do? It could be because I am not a one dimensional leatherworker as you appear to be. I like to study the craft and learn every technique I can. While doing that I learned about vinegaroon to make permanent black on leather.

And since other people use it successfully I figured it could work. And I was right.

So sorry, you are wrong about me again. If you would like to see the diversity of our leatherwork go here www.jbcases.com/casesbyname.html

There you will see that we are never afraid to do whatever the customers want.
 
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catpool9 said:
I assume that the maker of the Diamond tables know about the problem with the pocket liner leaving black marks on the pool balls, so why haven't they taken some action to fix the problem?, seems like a simple fix at the manufacture.


David Harcrow
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Diamond's solution?
Diamond Ball Cleaning machine :D
Trust you understand their marketing logic :D:D:D
 
Well, here is my experience with the black marks. I was using Aramith ball cleaner and I was getting black marks. Went to Aramith Billiard Ball Restorer, put one drop on each ball, let the balls spin in my homemade ball polisher for a couple of minutes, until they were very shiny, and I haven't had the black marks since. Now, I don't know for sure if it is because I have had the table for a while, but I find it strange that it happened at exactly the same time I swithched.
 
As much as I admire the Diamond tables, I don't think they have tried very hard to solve this problem or they would have solved it long ago. With all the black leather furniture and car seats that we sit and sweat on without getting black dye on our clothes, as well as black purses, wallets, briefcases, etc., it can't be rocket science to solve this problem. Apparently in their heart of hearts they don't think it's very important.

Either they are not using the right leather for this application or they are not dyeing or finishing it properly. I find it entirely credible that a leatherworker like John Barton who really tried could solve the problem in a fairly short time.
 
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