granite instead of slate???

T

Trent

Banned
im building a table for my 5yr old and its going to be 4x2 so it will fit in his room, since im building it from 2x4s and plywood and its a odd ball size and i wasnt sure what to use for the bed, but the other night i was at the discount home improvement store and they had a large granite slab that was the perfect size for the table the corner was chiped, that was all that was wrong with it but since i have to cut the corners off anyways it didnt matter. and it was only 98 dollars so i bought it.

hopefully it works well. any opinions?
 
Often wondered why they don't use plexiglass and cement in legs for table weight. It would be much easier to dolly legs than lift slate.
 
This is a subject i have thought of many times. I see no reason that it shoudn't work. I have wondered why cast concrete shouldn't make a decent bed. Surely someone here must know sonething about this matter?

Dave Nelson
 
Hmmm...I don't see why it wouldn't work either. There's really no reason that I can think of. The other thing is that this isn't going to be a championship table or anything. I think it will do just fine for a 5 year old.
 
table top

we have a granite quarry in our area, in the 70's they produced tables of all sizes. we currently have a 5x10 one piece granite topped table set up in our private room. it plays terrific. not sure if i have told the stories about moving that table or not but they are pretty interesting
 
Dave Nelson said:
This is a subject i have thought of many times. I see no reason that it shoudn't work. I have wondered why cast concrete shouldn't make a decent bed. Surely someone here must know sonething about this matter?

Dave Nelson
Click to expand...

I used to have a 4x8 bar table that had a cast concrete 1 piece "slate" ... perfectly level, but a ***** to move... weighed as much as the rest of the table.
 
concrete tends to crack when it settles,I would stay away from it unless you reinforce it with Joint expanders its heavy and just not worth the time or money plus its heavy.
 
Granite works very nice! Like Vrob I had 2 4x9 and 2 5x10 tables all
with 2" granite one piece beds! Yes the are very heavy.Good luck with your endevar.
 
I can verifiy Rob's story about the 5x10 granite bed table. It DOES play great, and weighs in at 1600 lbs. When I was there, there was also an 8' table, with granite for the bed. It was in 3 pieces, and three of us could not pick up even one piece off of the floor (it was that heavy). As I recall, we had to pry up a corner, and lever the pieces up one at a time, to move it out of the way, so we could play on the big table.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

vrob said:
we have a granite quarry in our area, in the 70's they produced tables of all sizes. we currently have a 5x10 one piece granite topped table set up in our private room. it plays terrific. not sure if i have told the stories about moving that table or not but they are pretty interesting
Click to expand...
 
The Koreans use to make a table that was a Gold Crown knock off called a Kangeroo. These table had 2 inch thick Granite 3 piece beds, and they were heavy as hell, the only think I did not like about these tables was the weight, they played very well. There are still some being used up here in the great Northwest, and one point they were selling them here, but for some reason they did not take off.

Take care
 
Density of slate and granite is identical - 2691 kg/cu mtr.

If the piece/s are ground flat, should be OK and same weight as slate.
 
I have read somewhere that slate is favored over granite because-
1 granite requires more polishing -so it is more expensive
2 demand for granite for other products-monoments,countertops,etc.
makes granite more expensive
3 density is equal texture of slate helps it to release moisture easier-
in other words granite will "sweat" more due to condensation
This is all from recall of research done before buying 4 tables with granite
beds.Hope I have these facts right and I am not just adding to the amount
of misinformation on the www!:grin-square:
 
alphadog said:
I have read somewhere that slate is favored over granite because-
1 granite requires more polishing -so it is more expensive
2 demand for granite for other products-monoments,countertops,etc.
makes granite more expensive
3 density is equal texture of slate helps it to release moisture easier-
in other words granite will "sweat" more due to condensation
This is all from recall of research done before buying 4 tables with granite
beds.Hope I have these facts right and I am not just adding to the amount
of misinformation on the www!:grin-square:
Click to expand...

I am from the diamond tool business. Our customers machine a lot of granite.

I fully agree to points 1 and 2. I can not confirm point 3. Our measuring tables in the worksop are all made out of black granite. The only sweat there comes from the workers.:wink:

Granite is really difficult to machine but is much harder. Slate can be machined with a metal bandsaw, for Granite, you will need a circular saw with diamond tips. A 3 foot slab will need a 9 foot saw. Then you need to polish the slab with 9 grids of abrasives, the first 3 will contain diamond as well. - That's the reason why granite is used so rarely. There are very many different kind of granites. Some kinds will give a teriffic table. But it will cost you!

Best regards from South-Germany

Gerhard
 
In the 60's, I used to play on a Mitchem (sp) table in a local pool hall in Iowa. They were OK tables, but had marble beds. In the summer, they got quite wet and very slow. In the winter, they were OK.

--JIM BUSS--
http://www.jimbuss.com
 
The main reason granite is not used in most tables as stated above is price. Granite is very high on the Mohs Hardness Scale due to it's composition of mainly quartz, feldspar, and plagioclase, all very hard minerals. Slate is normally far softer, composed of mica's (clay particles) for the most part and thus alot easier to cut with non-diamond tipped edges.

Granite is as also highly under demand for headstones, countertops, basically any commercial use where that hardness is required, making the material very difficult to damage or erode.

The only other issue I could see is the grain size. Granite's are formed underground by felsic igneous intrustions that cool slowly underground and thus form very large crystals. A slate has clay sized particles and is a far more homogeneous material.
 
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