To add a new questioThat depends, do you care if the balls roll straight when you hit them with the pool cue? Slate is the only play surface material that can be precision leveled to 1/10,000 of an inch so that the pool balls roll in a straight line on every shot. If you don't care if the balls roll straight, then save yourself some money and buy a "toy" table (non-slate).n go to app settings and press "Manage Questions" button.

An obvious difference is thickness. Three piece slate pool tables with less than 1" Thick Slate are much lighter and more likely to go out of level over time. The biggest difference is how the slate is cut. Slate is mined out of the ground, cut into 3 pieces, sanded or "honed" flat, then backed with a wood or MDF Frame. Slate that has too high or too low a moisture content is prone to cracking and chipping. Many companies improperly "hone" the slate, using small 6" sanding disks instead of the 5 foot wide sanding disks required to properly flatten slate. You can actually see the sanding marks on improperly honed slate going back and forth over and over again, watch out! All properly honed slate is also a matched set, three pieces cut from one original. There is always a Simi-circle chalk mark on the slate that should line up perfectly when the table is being assembled. This is how you can tell you have a "matched set" of pool table slate. Also, some companies use very cheap material to "Frame" or "Back" their slate. Good slate backing should be durable and not chip, flake off, or warp, so that the bed cloth (felt) can be replaced over and over again*.