Lava Soap to Remove Stains on Cloth

C

ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
This was recommended to me by Ernesto Dominguez while he was here at our room a few weeks ago to recover all our tables, which hadn’t been recovered by him in 3 years. On a few of our most badly stained 860HR Simonis clothed tables before he recovered them, we experimented with the soap with amazing results, as it removed all the stains as well as bringing the tournament blue original color back to the cloth. Having owned and operated our poolroom for the last 30+ years, I wished I had learned this years ago - absolutely amazing!

You must use a very firm brush and really soap down the entire table including the cushion tops with the soap and water - really scrubbing in the soap and water with the firm brush especially on the stained areas, then completely rinsing out the soap off the cloth with a wet cloth / towel. Then set a fan on the end of the table to help dry the cloth. I took some before and after photos on my phone which I’d be glad to text to anyone who’d like them, just PM me.
 
ChrisinNC said:
This was recommended to me by Ernesto Dominguez while he was here at our room a few weeks ago to recover all our tables, which hadn’t been recovered by him in 3 years. On a few of our most badly stained 860HR Simonis clothed tables before he recovered them, we experimented with the soap with amazing results, as it removed all the stains as well as bringing the tournament blue original color back to the cloth. I was absolutely amazed and wished I had learned this years ago.

You must use a very firm brush and really soap down the entire table including the cushion tops with the soap and water - really scrubbing in the soap and water with the firm brush, then completely rinsing out the soap off the cloth with a wet cloth / towel. Then set a fan on the end of the table to help dry the cloth. I took some before and after photos on my phone which I’d be glad to text to anyone who’d like them, just PM me.
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Neato burrito...and congrats on the new pool table outfits too, of course!
 
ChrisinNC said:
This was recommended to me by Ernesto Dominguez while he was here at our room a few weeks ago to recover all our tables, which hadn’t been recovered by him in 3 years. On a few of our most badly stained 860HR Simonis clothed tables before he recovered them, we experimented with the soap with amazing results, as it removed all the stains as well as bringing the tournament blue original color back to the cloth. Having owned and operated our poolroom for the last 30+ years, I wished I had learned this years ago - absolutely amazing!

You must use a very firm brush and really soap down the entire table including the cushion tops with the soap and water - really scrubbing in the soap and water with the firm brush especially on the stained areas, then completely rinsing out the soap off the cloth with a wet cloth / towel. Then set a fan on the end of the table to help dry the cloth. I took some before and after photos on my phone which I’d be glad to text to anyone who’d like them, just PM me.
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Can’t you just post the pictures here?
 
rinsing out soapy water from cloth takes a lot more than a wet towel to sop it up and remove all the soap.

no way do you get the soap out of the cloth that way.

it may not matter though but the rails and cloth will never be soap free.

if you have to go that far why not recover the table or tables.

but if banger tables then they will just ruin them back anyway. so it may be better than nothing to do that.
 
maha said:
rinsing out soapy water from cloth takes a lot more than a wet towel to sop it up and remove all the soap.

no way do you get the soap out of the cloth that way.

it may not matter though but the rails and cloth will never be soap free.

if you have to go that far why not recover the table or tables.

but if banger tables then they will just ruin them back anyway. so it may be better than nothing to do that.
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Yes, you do have to make sure you rub out all the soap with a very wet towel after scrubbing the soap in the cloth with a firm brush and plenty of water. I can assure you once you do and once the cloth is dry with the help of a fan set at the end of the table, it looks awesome with no damage at all to the cloth, and plays great.

According to Ernesto, who’s opinion I trust, it doesn’t do any harm to the cloth or even to the wooden subrails. Oscar does this on his tables at Hard Times in Sacramento, one of the best poolrooms in the country.
 
ChrisinNC said:
I wish I knew how to- sorry!
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A great explanation on how to post images

A great explanation on how to post images

Steve Booth over at Onepocket.org put together a nice little video explaining how to post images to the forums. Hopefully it will answer some of the questions that new users have... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eISEZd-7NOc&feature=youtu.be And when you are done here on AzB, check out his...
r.tapatalk.com
 
GideonF said:
A great explanation on how to post images

A great explanation on how to post images

Steve Booth over at Onepocket.org put together a nice little video explaining how to post images to the forums. Hopefully it will answer some of the questions that new users have... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eISEZd-7NOc&feature=youtu.be And when you are done here on AzB, check out his...
r.tapatalk.com
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Not sure how secure doing this is but the old fashioned standard is get it on your desktop and drag it to where you want it; the post box in this case. Pretty sure phones don't work this way.
 
You can soak the table with a garden hose and vacuum it up with a wet vac. That will dilute the soap and remove it.

I've had a watermain break and soak my table for over an hour. I dried it the same day. No effect at all.

Americans are terrified of water because they think it causes damage. Water only causes damage if you don't/can't remove it, or if you get dry wall wet (which is an international laughingstock of a building material).
 
nataddrho said:
You can soak the table with a garden hose and vacuum it up with a wet vac. That will dilute the soap and remove it.

I've had a watermain break and soak my table for over an hour. I dried it the same day. No effect at all.

Americans are terrified of water because they think it causes damage. Water only causes damage if you don't/can't remove it, or if you get dry wall wet (which is an international laughingstock of a building material).
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Yeah, I used to think it was bad to completely wet down the entire table, but that’s honestly the only way to get out any stains from the cloth without leaving a water mark between where you’ve wet down the cloth and where you’ve not wet down the cloth. However, I’m not really sure about using a garden hose - a folded soaking wet towel is what I’ve always used.
 
Not to mother hen but mother henning anyway, if the cloth was on a removable frame, you could take it outside and hose it off. Also pop it on in the first place.:ROFLMAO:
 
Yeahhhh, well Ernesto and his son are respected players and table mechanics.

Having said that, I’m a firm believer you NEVER wet down the rails or the bed of a table with anything. Chalk under the cloth turns into mud, and slate and rail rubber doesn’t dissipate moisture well. Not to mention Pumice, which is the gritty crap that makes Lava what it is can’t be good for cloth, irrelevant of how Ernesto and son think or do. I think Simonis might tell you the same.

Also, 3 years between coverings? In a commercial hall? Really?
 
I think people are mistaking the amount of water used on the bed and rails in the explanation from @ChrisinNC

You’re not mopping a floor…the cloth gets saturated but not flooded where water is running off the table onto the floor. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Picture taking a microfiber cloth and soaking it in a bucket and squeeze water out but not wring it completely then scrub the table and rails where they get wet but not dripping wet.

I always used woolite in both my rooms with a micro fiber cloth and soft bristle brush and always got stains out. People were always surprised after.
 
Frosty said:
Yeahhhh, well Ernesto and his son are respected players and table mechanics.

Having said that, I’m a firm believer you NEVER wet down the rails or the bed of a table with anything. Chalk under the cloth turns into mud, and slate and rail rubber doesn’t dissipate moisture well. Not to mention Pumice, which is the gritty crap that makes Lava what it is can’t be good for cloth, irrelevant of how Ernesto and son think or do. I think Simonis might tell you the same.

Also, 3 years between coverings? In a commercial hall? Really?
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Regarding your last sentence, we may not get the play on our tables that many pool rooms get, but mainly it’s a testament to how we take care of our tables and the rules we strictly enforce - much like many of you here likely enforce on your treasured home tables when others play on them.

We wipe down and vacuum them regularly, we use break pads, we make sure all the tips on our house cues are shaped properly, no scoop jump shots permitted and most importantly the rule of not eating while playing is very strictly enforced. Most all of our regulars respect all those rules, as it keeps the cloth looking as good as possible. We easily could have gone longer without new cloth.

As far as your reluctance to wetting down the cloth and scrubbing in the lava soap to try to remove the stains, I understand your reluctance to doing this, as I also was. However for those that have older cloth with unsightly stains, it’s certainly worth trying, as it’s worked extremely well for us. I’ve been trying numerous other products to try to remove stains from table cloth for 30 years, and this is by far the best I’ve found for stain removal.
 
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I appreciate you posting this, because I would never have thought to try Lava on cloth. I have only ever used a light Woolite wipe and a soft brush on my home table, so the idea of scrubbing with a firm brush and a pumice soap makes me a bit nervous, especially about getting all the soap out. Maha's point about residue stuck with me — I would worry about it changing how the balls roll or how the cloth feels under my bridge hand. That said, if Ernesto recommended it and your before-and-after photos show the tournament blue coming back, it is hard to argue with the result on badly stained house tables. If I tried it, I would test it first on a small, stained area and go over it with a very wet towel a few times before I did the whole bed. Thanks for sharing the method in detail.
 
KINGSCOURT905 said:
I appreciate you posting this, because I would never have thought to try Lava on cloth. I have only ever used a light Woolite wipe and a soft brush on my home table, so the idea of scrubbing with a firm brush and a pumice soap makes me a bit nervous, especially about getting all the soap out. Maha's point about residue stuck with me — I would worry about it changing how the balls roll or how the cloth feels under my bridge hand. That said, if Ernesto recommended it and your before-and-after photos show the tournament blue coming back, it is hard to argue with the result on badly stained house tables. If I tried it, I would test it first on a small, stained area and go over it with a very wet towel a few times before I did the whole bed. Thanks for sharing the method in detail.
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You do have to scrub it real good with a wet towel to make sure you remove all the soap after you’ve thoroughly scrubbed in the soap / water with a brush. And I warn you, unless you wet down and do this on the entire table surface, it will not look good at all.
 
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