Installation Guide

This outlines how cloth is fitted to a slate bed and to the rails, and how worn cushion cloth is replaced. It is written for reference. Fitting cloth well takes practice, and a mistake usually means buying replacement cloth.

Before the cloth goes on

• Clean the table thoroughly.
• Check the slate for level and shim wherever it is needed.
• Tighten all slate screws fully so the sections bind together.
• Fill the seams with a flexible filler such as beeswax, hardened with a resin compound. Paraffin and plaster of paris are not suitable.

Fitting the bed cloth

1. Leave enough cloth to cover one end and one side, then staple it to the wood frame in three places about two inches apart.
2. Stretch the cloth tightly across the table and staple three more places opposite the first.
3. Stretch along the length and staple three places, keeping tension even.
4. Stretch diagonally across the table and staple two places to hold the tension.
5. Working toward each side pocket in turn, stretch and staple three places at a time.
6. Expect a small pucker at the center of each side pocket; it disappears once the pocket cuts are made.
7. Cut a short slit at the edge centered on each side pocket opening, pull the cloth into the opening, and staple to the underside of the frame while working out wrinkles.
8. Staple around the corner pockets, leaving a little slack at each opening.
9. Staple along the remaining sides on roughly three inch centers.
10. Stretch the remaining length down the table, confirm the side pocket puckers have gone, and staple securely.

Work the tension evenly rather than pulling hard in one direction. Uneven tension is what causes a ball to drift on a table that measures level. Finish by stretching the cloth into each corner pocket and stapling it to the underside of the slate frame, cutting short slits at the edge where needed to remove wrinkles, then trim all the excess cloth with scissors or a blade.

Covering the rails

Rail cloth is held by the feather strip, a thin wooden strip that presses the cloth into a groove along the cushion side of the rail. The cloth has a face side, usually marked with a sticker, which goes down against the rail while it is fitted.

1. Lay the new cloth over the rail face side down, with an equal overhang at each end and about half an inch past the feather strip groove on the cushion side. Use a little more or less depending on how tight the feather strip is.
2. Starting at the center of the rail, tap the feather strip down until it sits about a sixteenth of an inch proud at the rear.
3. Stretching the cloth from the center toward each end, keep tapping the strip down while holding the half-inch overhang, stopping about three inches from each end.
4. At each end pull the cloth a further half inch toward the cushion, then tap the last of the strip down using a fiber block.
5. Trim the cloth along the cushion side of the feather strip with a sharp knife.
6. Tap the whole strip flush with the top of the rail, always through the block — a bare hammer will dent the rail behind the strip.
7. Turn the rail over. At each corner pocket, fold the cloth over the mitered edge, stretch it tight, work out the wrinkles and staple. This is the hardest part of the job.
8. Pull the cloth tight over the rear edge of the pocket facing and staple it in three places; on an end rail, repeat at the other corner.
9. From the center of the rail outward, stretch the cloth over the cushion and staple along the bottom of the rail, then trim the excess.

Side pockets

1. Stretch the cloth tightly over the nose of the cushion and staple it in three places.
2. Slit the cloth up to the edge of the cushion nose and pull the small strip firmly to the rear of the facing.
3. Hold the fold with thumb and forefinger, fold it down over the facing, and staple at the rear of the facing and along the bottom of the rail. Trim as needed.

Replacing worn cushion cloth

Removing the old cloth

1. With the rails off the table, remove the staples at the rear edge of each pocket facing.
2. Cut the old cloth along the full length of the feather strip on the cushion side, about half an inch from the cloth line.
3. Peel the cloth back, slip a feather strip puller or a narrow flat screwdriver (no wider than an eighth of an inch) under the strip, and pry it out carefully. An undamaged strip can be reused.
4. Turn the rail face down and pull the remaining staples from the old cloth.

Fitting a new feather strip

1. Seat the new strip in its groove and trim one end flush with the angle of the pocket opening with a hacksaw, keeping the blade tilted so it does not cut into the rail behind the groove.
2. Butt the trimmed end against the pocket facing and trim the other end the same way.
3. Lay the new cloth over the groove and check that the strip will still tap down. The groove and strip are cut for lighter cloth; a heavier grade may need the strip planed thinner to fit.

Once the strip fits, cover the rail as described above. When fitting the cloth, its nap should run left to right on the end rails and from the head of the table toward the foot on the side rails.