How much damage do you think the edges of the slate would see?? If the slates are pulled tight together, the edges won't be contacted. I don't care what game you or playing or how hard the balls contact the surface.
i agree if your slate is nicely machined like the table i'm currently working on you can go with wax. (i posted pics of the that seam and compared it to the seam on my Brunstone ) . on 'good' slate, it might be better to use wax because it's hard to get bondo down far into the slate and i will consider the wax option if the bondo fails me.... correct me if i'm wrong but the machining of slate has gotten better over the years, right?
when the slate isn't machined like it should be and there is more of a gap. i would never use wax in such a case and on that crappy Brunstone i had, the gap was too wide for wax. bondo was definitely the way to go...
so maybe the 'formula' should be "good" slate, use wax, iffy slate use bondo.
but i'm rereading your post and i have to address these points:
You need to melt the wax into the pores of the slate. When scraped, it will be about a 4" wide stripe of wax, with a smooth appearance, like glass.
melting the wax is melting the wax. it's not the wax on the outside of the seam that comes out, it's the seam wax that pulls up when vacuuming. also, if you put 4" wide stripe of wax on the seam that will cause an elevation unless you scrape it off which will defeat the purpose, right?
sure my arguments hold weight. i may be a novice but i can eventually get a table playing better than most 'slap-dash' mechanics. i know because i hired one. that's when i decided to learn how to set up a pool table by myself. you just have to know some basics the most important being that SLATE BENDS. i had no idea before i began learning that slate bends. the other thing i learned is to put shims in the center to support the middle of the slate which keeps the balls from rolling off toward the center of the table. now that i have a good level and found a table with good slate, this isn't that hard. anyone with general mechanical know-how can do it but just not as fast as a pro.You hit the nail on the head: "from a novice perspective". Your arguments don't hold weight.
i have my table super level now and i'm going over it with the ball roll which is the fun part. it's really nice. now for the cloth and rails...
again: when you melt the wax in the seam and scrape off the excess, that's about all the know-how involved. you mainly just have to not overheat it and let it drip down onto the ground. melted wax is melted wax.Use what you want. But don't tell the rest of us about the inferiority of a product, just because you don't know how to use it.
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