I am thinking about building pool tables. What woods are used for slate tables? Legs, frame, top rails? I'm sure it has to be a pretty strong wood to hold up the slate.
Building pool tables
- Thread starter blackflagsailor
- Start date
The best wood now is engineered wood. Although it might be nice to make one of all walnut, the results will be a table that needs a lot of work and leveling on a regular basis unless you have a humidity and temperature controlled environment similar to a test lab. Engineered woods expand and contract more evenly making the stability much higher. The thicker the slate the less vibration you have and consequently a more stable table in the long run. Building a table out of Steel and engineered woods like Soren Sogaard billiard tables and Diamond tables and keep the decorative woods just for veneers and non structural I think is your best bet. Good luck in your project.
Wow! There's a lot of good information there! I want to do a nice looking, basic table. Start with standard pool tables and eventually move onto more special tables like Snooker, Carom, Russian, and maybe even Bagatelle and bar billiard tables as well as nice bumper pool tables like the sized used in Belgium.
I'd also like to make other custom wood billiard accessories. I figured a table would be a nice big project to test me with to see if I really want to do this. A good skill building experience.
I want to do this table. Turn the legs on the lathe. Simple, but nice frame.
Custom billiards has some nice items like turned legs. Any good books or other good resources? Information on building or parts suppliers?