What Ever Happened To Chalk-Off Pool Table Cleaner?

Cardigan Kid

Cardigan Kid

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I'm watching some old us open nine ball videos on YouTube from the early 2000's and the commercials are constantly running for Chalk-Off Pool Table Cleaner.

Anyone still use that stuff? They don't seem to advertise anymore. I had a can of it back in 2008, but I was told it leaves a residue on the cloth and gets the balls dirty, so I stopped using it. Maybe more heard the same and that's why the advertising dried up?

They are also using the Sardo tight rack. What a contraption that thing was. Anyone still use that?:eek:
 
I still have a Sardo tight right that I bring out once in a while. I think it racks pretty good, but just takes to long.
 
I bought the chalk off, but when I read the amount of chemicals in the can, I decided NEVER to try it.

If anyone has it, I'd use a mask while cleaning the table, and not do it around kids. I forgot what chemical it was that was the real bad one, but it was kinda bad !!
 
ChicagoRJ said:
I bought the chalk off, but when I read the amount of chemicals in the can, I decided NEVER to try it.

If anyone has it, I'd use a mask while cleaning the table, and not do it around kids. I forgot what chemical it was that was the real bad one, but it was kinda bad !!
Click to expand...

Woah, that's crazy. I'll wonder if I still have the can in the garage collection of cans. My curiosity has peaked.
 
I've also watched a lot of old matches with the Sardo rack. I found it suspicious that the only times it was used was when Mr. Sardo was a sponsor and was the one racking the balls. Makes me think the thing is a pain to set up and use and nobody else wants to mess with it. From what I know about it, it requires tapping the balls into the cloth in advance. So you are training the table in advance and then the Sardo rack is simply positioning the balls in the cloth divets.
 
Chalk Off was another product that seems to only exist at pool tournaments because it was a sponsor. Who would want to spray some unknown substance all over their pool table in order to clean it? The stuff probably came straight out of the exhaust of Homer Simpson's power plant.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KRJ
Chemical Fallout

ChicagoRJ said:
I bought the chalk off, but when I read the amount of chemicals in the can, I decided NEVER to try it.

If anyone has it, I'd use a mask while cleaning the table, and not do it around kids. I forgot what chemical it was that was the real bad one, but it was kinda bad !!
Click to expand...

You are right, chemical fallout is something one better consider. Lately I know of 2 cue makers that have copd in a bad way. The fumes and dust off of what they were doing contain stuff you cant see and that gets breathed in and can cause you to have a bad day later on.
 
Cardigan Kid said:
I'm watching some old us open nine ball videos on YouTube from the early 2000's and the commercials are constantly running for Chalk-Off Pool Table Cleaner.

Anyone still use that stuff? They don't seem to advertise anymore. I had a can of it back in 2008, but I was told it leaves a residue on the cloth and gets the balls dirty, so I stopped using it. Maybe more heard the same and that's why the advertising dried up?

They are also using the Sardo tight rack. What a contraption that thing was. Anyone still use that?:eek:
Click to expand...

Howsabout the brunge?:wink

I been watching some olde vids too...
 
jeffj2h said:
I've also watched a lot of old matches with the Sardo rack. I found it suspicious that the only times it was used was when Mr. Sardo was a sponsor and was the one racking the balls. Makes me think the thing is a pain to set up and use and nobody else wants to mess with it. From what I know about it, it requires tapping the balls into the cloth in advance. So you are training the table in advance and then the Sardo rack is simply positioning the balls in the cloth divets.
Click to expand...

Another possibility is that the matches you are watching are at the points in events where they had a 3rd party racking.

I have played a few events where the players racked and sardo was used.
 
I know two people who have Sardo rack. They ended up relegated to the storage closet when Magic Rack came out. It worked just as well, cheaper, and not as fussy.
 
I've heard Carmine Sardo and family are great people and have done a lot to support pool. Here is part of a 2007 article by Jerry Forsyth

"That perfect rack emerged when Lou and Carmine Sardo introduced the Sardo rack. Lou and Carmine are two of the nicest guys the game has ever hosted, and they worked long and hard to come up with a racking system that would deliver consistently frozen racks. They succeeded in part by ‘training’ the table to form a frozen rack by tapping all nine balls into place.

It did not take the pros long to learn that a soft break shot into a frozen rack would send the wing ball on the side they break from straight into the corner pocket, time after time. And the one ball would wind up near the side pocket. So they could just break softly, play position on the one ball in the side pocket, and run racks. Ron Wiseman summed it up best when he told me: “The soft break is like going to a golf tournament where the players begin each hole with a putt.” Tapping the balls became so established that at many tournaments no racks are even presented at the table at all. The players just roll the balls into the dents in the table by hand.

The soft break became such a bore to watch that tournament promoters came up with all sorts of gimmicks to stop it. They made rules that four balls had to pass the side pockets to constitute a legal break,. The pros soon showed them that a soft break could still send four balls up-table. So they began racking the 9-ball on the spot instead of the one ball, moving the entire rack up by the width of two balls. The pros immediately discovered that they could use that formation to send the one ball into the side pocket and play position on the two ball instead of the one."
 
I used to play in a place that used ChalkOff all the time.

After recovering their tables they played great for maybe 3/4

Months. Clean and fast! The rails would end up a casuality of

ChalkOff. Build up was like dirty ear wax.:(
 
Sounds like its useful to extend life on worn out cloth. Do you remember how well if worked on spills? For a pool hall owner, a possible nightmare scenario is installing new cloth and having a customer spill a glass of wine. Around here, the players will avoid those tables, and the owner will end up giving out to bangers.

alphadog said:
I used to play in a place that used ChalkOff all the time.

After recovering their tables they played great for maybe 3/4

Months. Clean and fast! The rails would end up a casuality of

ChalkOff. Build up was like dirty ear wax.:(
Click to expand...
 
ChicagoRJ said:
I bought the chalk off, but when I read the amount of chemicals in the can, I decided NEVER to try it.

If anyone has it, I'd use a mask while cleaning the table, and not do it around kids. I forgot what chemical it was that was the real bad one, but it was kinda bad !!
Click to expand...

I can't recall which one I used, but it was either chalk off or quick clean. But that sh&t was toxic for sure. I literally got a head ache after using it. Now our household has gone chemical free and we are better for it.
 
The "chalk off" guys are usually at SBX, at least they were all the years I had went.

The last 2 years I ran the 14.1 challenge the chalk off guys would always clean out tables, from what I saw the product worked great.

Steve
 
You guys with old cans of Chalk Off could prolly get big money by
selling them to local school kids who "huff" chemicals to get high

We had a neighbor kid (in the 1950's) who huffed gasoline from
his Dad's John Deere. He would crawl atop the engine cowling,
straddle the gas tank, and lower his head close to the tank opening.
He would take several deep breaths, sit up straight, pass out, and
fall onto the ground in the fetal position. Several minutes would
pass and he would repeat the process. He dropped out of school
at age 16 and ran away from home.

Anyway, I've always viewed Chalk Off and the Sardo Rack as "gimmicks".
A high quality billiard cloth vacuum, used regularly, is the very best
method for cloth maintenance.
I also highly recommend the Delta-13 Rack. It performs flawlessly and
will last several lifetimes.
 
There was a lawsuit over chak off and quickclean and I think only Quickclean is still standing with Chalk Off being hit with a cease and desist....

The nice thing bout the quickclean that it can be sprayed on a microfiber cloth and then used to wipe down the table and you have a clean table in under 2 minutes without dragging the vacuum out...

The other nice thing is it will get coke, beer and Jaeger up and not leave a stain if you catch it when it happens... You simply soak the spill up and then load the area with quickclean and keep spreading the stain out until the edges have no color... I have saved several cloths at one of the local rooms from coke and a double Jaeger... Nothing else I have seen will pull that off....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top