How to Recloth a Pool Table: DIY Guide and Materials

Should You Recloth Your Own Table or Hire a Pro?

I recloth my own home table, and have done four refits over the past fifteen years. The first one took me most of a weekend and looked okay. The fourth took about four hours and looked indistinguishable from a professional job. The learning curve is real but not steep, anyone moderately handy can do this work themselves and save two to four hundred dollars per recloth.

The honest case for hiring a pro: if you have an antique table, a one-piece slate (rare on home tables), or you simply do not have the time or patience, pay the professional. A good billiard mechanic charges around two to three hundred dollars plus the cloth itself, and they do the job in two hours with factory-level precision. For anything valuable or complicated, that fee is worth paying.

The case for DIY: a standard home table with a three-piece slate is a straightforward project. You need a staple gun, a good quality cloth, rubber cement for the cushion noses, and patience. This guide walks through the full process for a solo DIY reclothing, the materials, the steps, and the common mistakes that turn a save into a re-do.

Simonis 860 vs Championship, Choosing Your Cloth

Cloth choice is the biggest decision you make before starting a recloth. The two dominant brands in home tables are Simonis and Championship. Simonis 860 is the industry standard for tournament play, it is worsted wool (meaning the fibers are twisted tight), which produces a fast, consistent roll with minimal fuzz. Championship Tour Edition is similar in construction and quality, and many pros consider the two interchangeable.

For home tables that see light-to-moderate play, either cloth will last five to ten years. For heavy-play tables or tournament room use, Simonis 860 is what most commercial venues specify. Budget woolen cloth (sometimes called 'napped' or 'billiard cloth') is cheaper, under a hundred dollars for a full table, but it plays slower, fuzzes faster, and wears out in two to three years. It is fine for casual family tables but not recommended for serious players.

Color also matters. Blue-green is the traditional tournament color and is easier on your eyes during long sessions. Red, tan, burgundy, and black are all valid choices but tend to hide chalk dust less visibly, so you will see stains quicker. A standard 8-foot home table needs about three and a half to four yards of cloth, buy five to be safe, because mistakes happen and extra material is cheap insurance.

Tools and Prep Work

Gather your tools before you start: a pneumatic or electric staple gun with 3/8-inch or 1/2-inch staples, a utility knife, a straight edge, a chalk line or pencil, rubber cement or spray adhesive, and a vacuum with a soft brush attachment. A second person to help stretch cloth is ideal but not required. I have done it solo many times, it just takes a little longer.

Prep starts with removing the rails and old cloth. The rails unbolt from underneath the table, usually eight bolts per rail on a standard table, accessible through holes in the skirt. Lift each rail off carefully and set them aside on padded surfaces. Remove the old cloth from the slate by peeling it off; it is usually glued with contact cement that comes free with moderate force.

Once the slate is bare, vacuum it thoroughly. Check the slate surface for any damage, cracks, chips, or raised edges around the seams between the three slate pieces. Fill any seam imperfections with Bondo or a specialized slate filler, sand smooth, and let dry overnight before proceeding. A clean, level slate is the foundation of a good recloth. Skip this step and your cloth will telegraph every flaw.

Stretching the Cloth Over the Slate

Unroll the cloth over the slate with the nap direction pointing toward the foot of the table. Nap direction matters, brushing the cloth along the nap produces a smoother roll, and the nap is what gives the table its 'lay.' Most cloths have an indicator or a fabric printed label showing nap direction. If in doubt, the shinier side of the cloth is the nap direction.

Start the stretching process at the head rail. Position the cloth so it drapes over all four rails with several inches of overhang on each side. Align the cloth so the weave is parallel to the long rails, skewed cloth will always look wrong no matter how tight you pull it. Use a chalk line or rail edge as your reference.

Now stretch. Staple the cloth along the head rail first, working from the center outward. Then go to the foot rail and stretch the cloth tight lengthwise, stapling center-out again. With the cloth tight end-to-end, work on the long rails, stretching sideways from the center toward each pocket corner. The goal is a surface with no wrinkles, no loose spots, and equal tension in all directions. A wrinkle you leave now becomes a permanent defect.

Stapling Patterns and Seaming

Staple placement is more important than most DIY guides mention. Place your first staples at the exact centerline of each rail, then work toward the corners. Space staples every inch to inch-and-a-half on the rails, except near the pockets where you may want denser placement for cleaner finishing. Shoot staples at a slight angle into the wood so they hold better under tension.

At the pockets, the cloth needs to be cut carefully and folded into the pocket opening. Use a sharp utility knife to make relief cuts from the edge of the cloth toward the pocket corner, following the curve of the pocket. Fold the cut edges down into the pocket and staple them in place. Excess cloth is trimmed after stapling. This is where most DIY jobs go wrong, rushed pocket cuts look amateurish forever.

Some tables require seaming the rail cloth separately from the bed cloth. On most three-piece slate home tables, the bed cloth is a single piece and the rail cloths are separate strips glued to the rail rubber. The seam between bed cloth and rail cloth runs along the edge of the slate and is usually invisible once stapled. If your table has any seams visible after reclothing, your stretching was uneven, re-do the stretch.

Rail Rubber and Cushion Cloth

Rail rubber, the cushion noses that balls bounce off, needs cloth wrapped around it separately from the bed cloth. The rails come off the table as units, and you work on each rail individually on a workbench or padded table. Remove the old cloth from each rail by peeling and scraping, then clean the rubber with a rag dampened in denatured alcohol to remove old adhesive residue.

Apply a thin layer of rubber cement or spray adhesive to the rubber surface and along the wooden rail sides. Wrap new cloth strips around the rail, pulling tight to eliminate wrinkles. Staple along the bottom and back sides of the rail where the cloth will not be visible. Trim excess cloth with a utility knife. This step is tedious but forgiving, you can re-do a rail if it does not look right the first time.

Once all rails are re-cloth and the bed cloth is stretched, reattach the rails to the table using the original bolts. Tighten them in a cross-pattern sequence to distribute tension evenly. Check that the pocket openings align cleanly with the rail cloth. If they do not, loosen and readjust the rail position before full tightening. A misaligned rail is painful to fix later.

How Long It Actually Takes, The 4-Hour Solo Reality

A first-time DIY recloth typically takes six to eight hours spread across a weekend. You will second-guess yourself, re-do steps, and move slowly. A second recloth, knowing what you learned from the first, usually takes five hours. By your third, you can do a full recloth in about four hours solo if you have your tools laid out and work with intent. Having a second person cuts this to about three hours.

The phases break down roughly as: thirty minutes to remove rails and old cloth, thirty minutes to clean and prep the slate, one hour to stretch and staple the bed cloth, one and a half hours to recloth the rails, and thirty minutes to reassemble. Add fifteen to thirty minutes of buffer time for unexpected issues like stubborn staples, damaged rubber, or alignment problems.

Do not recloth under time pressure. If you start Saturday afternoon and realize you will not finish before dinner, that is fine, leave the slate bare overnight and resume Sunday. A rushed recloth always shows. Cloth stretched while you are tired or impatient will have wrinkles or uneven tension that you will see every time you play for the next five years.