I just finished leveling my new 9' Diamond Professional table. I'm going to explain the steps I took and I have some pictures at the end. I'm looking for feedback regarding the condition and flatness of my slate and whether or not it falls near the normal range.
I spent a ton of time doing this and must have leveled the slate at least 5 times over the period of 8 days. I used a 6' construction level, 8" and 12" Starrett 98 levels, leveling cards, and 3' and 4' Starrett straight edges with feeler stock. I used information from many different threads on this forum and other websites and advice from Diamond Billiards and RKC.
I logged all my level measurements in terms of divisions from center on my 0.005in/ft Starretts. It seems like most mechanics in this forum use inches to describe level readings. I'm guessing they mean inches per foot. For this write-up, I'll use inches per foot.
Here is the rough sequence of operations I went through:
1. Leveled the frame without the slates on the table.
2. Leveled the frame with the slates on the table using a 6' construction level with razor blades under and a Starrett on top.
3. Leveled the perimeter of the slates without the rails on even though RKC and Diamond said I should do it with them on (I just wanted to try it this way first). I stopped after I got the slate to within 0.005in/ft on my Starrets at all positions. I had a couple of places on the head and center slates that I could not flatten out more.
4. Leveled the perimeter of the slate with the rails installed and torqued. I stopped again after I realized that I couldn't get rid of the +/-0.005in/ft slopes in a few places. After scratching my head for a while and running my levels and straight edges all over the center slate, I realized that the problem was caused by high/low spots left from machining the slate. If you look at the picture of my slate, you can easily see the machining marks around the worst high/low spots (large arcs).
5. Mapped out the localized high/low spots in my slates. I found a crown in the foot section and a variety of high/low spots in each of the sections. I was pretty surprised that my brand new slate had this much deviation. I have never mapped out another slate and have no idea if I should be surprised by the condition of mine. I would like to hear what mechanics in this forum think about the condition of my slate and where it falls in the range of conditions they have seen. My slates have heavier machining marks than those I have seen in other pictures of slates in these forums. I was also surprised to find out that my head slate section doesn't match the center and foot sections (easy to see in the pictures).
6. Used weights to push down a crown in the center and foot slate sections. These crowns were caused by different mechanisms which made it impossible for me to get them perfectly matched over the entire seam. I ended up with small sections of the center/foot seam that were mismatched by about 0.003in at the worst points.
7. Superglued my seams. I realized after I started this step that I had no idea how much superglue to use. I kept putting more in and the index cards kept sucking it up! I think I used about 10g total.
8. Blocked the slate to knock down the high spots. This was a VERY time consuming and messy process, but I was able to make a significant improvement in the local flatness of my slate sections. The mismatch in the center/foot seam was knocked down to less than 0.001".
9. Leveled the perimeter of the slate and got it to where the largest error was a single point where my Starrett read 0.004in/ft.
10. Used my 4' straight edge and 12" level to equalize the side to side and end to end slope of the table. This started out at about 0.001in/ft in either direction. By tweaking the table legs I was able to zero this out within my ability to read my level. After I finished this step, the largest error around the perimeter of my table was in a single spot at 0.003in/ft on my Starrett. Every other point reads at 0.002in/ft or better (most are < 0.001in/ft).
11. Removed rails and used Bondo to fill the seams. The tiny mismatch left in the center/foot seam was smoothed out nicely with the bondo.
Because of the way this table is designed, the level changes quite a bit when you install/remove the rails. I'm going to install the rails one more time tonight to make sure the table returns to level before I put the cloth on.
I think that if my slates were flatter to begin with, I could have dialed it in to zero all the way around. I would love to hear from mechanics about how my slate compares to the condition of an average slate that you see. Should I have expected better slate on a new table? Should I have expected that all of my slate sections were cut from the same piece? Does any of this matter?
All in all, this was a major pain in the ass and I never want to do it again. I'm still glad that I did it myself because I am 100% convinced that no local mechanic would have set the table up as level and flat as I have it now. I am shocked by the amount of time this took me and find myself wondering how anyone does this fast enough to make a living. I would probably make $2/hr at the rate I’m going.
Thanks for reading,
Jason Martin
Assembled frame
Calibrating levels
More leveling
Weights for superglue
Leveling after superglue
Blocking after superglue
Bondo
I spent a ton of time doing this and must have leveled the slate at least 5 times over the period of 8 days. I used a 6' construction level, 8" and 12" Starrett 98 levels, leveling cards, and 3' and 4' Starrett straight edges with feeler stock. I used information from many different threads on this forum and other websites and advice from Diamond Billiards and RKC.
I logged all my level measurements in terms of divisions from center on my 0.005in/ft Starretts. It seems like most mechanics in this forum use inches to describe level readings. I'm guessing they mean inches per foot. For this write-up, I'll use inches per foot.
Here is the rough sequence of operations I went through:
1. Leveled the frame without the slates on the table.
2. Leveled the frame with the slates on the table using a 6' construction level with razor blades under and a Starrett on top.
3. Leveled the perimeter of the slates without the rails on even though RKC and Diamond said I should do it with them on (I just wanted to try it this way first). I stopped after I got the slate to within 0.005in/ft on my Starrets at all positions. I had a couple of places on the head and center slates that I could not flatten out more.
4. Leveled the perimeter of the slate with the rails installed and torqued. I stopped again after I realized that I couldn't get rid of the +/-0.005in/ft slopes in a few places. After scratching my head for a while and running my levels and straight edges all over the center slate, I realized that the problem was caused by high/low spots left from machining the slate. If you look at the picture of my slate, you can easily see the machining marks around the worst high/low spots (large arcs).
5. Mapped out the localized high/low spots in my slates. I found a crown in the foot section and a variety of high/low spots in each of the sections. I was pretty surprised that my brand new slate had this much deviation. I have never mapped out another slate and have no idea if I should be surprised by the condition of mine. I would like to hear what mechanics in this forum think about the condition of my slate and where it falls in the range of conditions they have seen. My slates have heavier machining marks than those I have seen in other pictures of slates in these forums. I was also surprised to find out that my head slate section doesn't match the center and foot sections (easy to see in the pictures).
6. Used weights to push down a crown in the center and foot slate sections. These crowns were caused by different mechanisms which made it impossible for me to get them perfectly matched over the entire seam. I ended up with small sections of the center/foot seam that were mismatched by about 0.003in at the worst points.
7. Superglued my seams. I realized after I started this step that I had no idea how much superglue to use. I kept putting more in and the index cards kept sucking it up! I think I used about 10g total.
8. Blocked the slate to knock down the high spots. This was a VERY time consuming and messy process, but I was able to make a significant improvement in the local flatness of my slate sections. The mismatch in the center/foot seam was knocked down to less than 0.001".
9. Leveled the perimeter of the slate and got it to where the largest error was a single point where my Starrett read 0.004in/ft.
10. Used my 4' straight edge and 12" level to equalize the side to side and end to end slope of the table. This started out at about 0.001in/ft in either direction. By tweaking the table legs I was able to zero this out within my ability to read my level. After I finished this step, the largest error around the perimeter of my table was in a single spot at 0.003in/ft on my Starrett. Every other point reads at 0.002in/ft or better (most are < 0.001in/ft).
11. Removed rails and used Bondo to fill the seams. The tiny mismatch left in the center/foot seam was smoothed out nicely with the bondo.
Because of the way this table is designed, the level changes quite a bit when you install/remove the rails. I'm going to install the rails one more time tonight to make sure the table returns to level before I put the cloth on.
I think that if my slates were flatter to begin with, I could have dialed it in to zero all the way around. I would love to hear from mechanics about how my slate compares to the condition of an average slate that you see. Should I have expected better slate on a new table? Should I have expected that all of my slate sections were cut from the same piece? Does any of this matter?
All in all, this was a major pain in the ass and I never want to do it again. I'm still glad that I did it myself because I am 100% convinced that no local mechanic would have set the table up as level and flat as I have it now. I am shocked by the amount of time this took me and find myself wondering how anyone does this fast enough to make a living. I would probably make $2/hr at the rate I’m going.
Thanks for reading,
Jason Martin
Assembled frame
Calibrating levels
More leveling
Weights for superglue
Leveling after superglue
Blocking after superglue
Bondo
Last edited:
