Sorry guys, I wasn't going to say anything to this post, but now I feel compelled to...LOL First of all, wool don't shrink, if it did there'd be a whole lot of sheep running around very uncomfortable as their nuts would be up around their back bones after a good rain....LMAO and nylon for sure don't shrink.
Any and all cloth will lose its elasticity if it gets "Wet" as in soaked. The water allows the fibers of the threads to slip on each other which allows for a more relaxed cloth so to speak. I assure you, if you soak Simonis 860 with a spray bottle of water, you'll be able to stretch it a little over 6 inches when attaching the bed cloth on a 9ft table...but after it drys, you'll still be able to see the wrinkles in the cloth at the ends of your fingers as you slide your hand over the playing surface.
When installing Simonis 860, dry, I can only stretch it 2 1/4" side to side, that's a difference of almost 4" between wet and dry.
If you want to clean the cloth, woolite and water works the best that I've ever seen. Woolite is a wool cloth cleaner. Use a few cap fulls in a bucket of water, soak a rag wet in it, wring out the rag tightly, then using it in a single layer, you can scrub the cloth clean...just don't soak the cloth.
And sorry Buddha, but Simonis don't make a home version of the commercial grade of cloth...ALL Simonis cloth is commercial grade.
Glen
