[CanadianSal]

Sorry if this is not appropriate - but with the lockdown, I am hoping it will be tolerated.
I am looking into building a pool table - with MDF and wood. I wonder if anyone has done this and wants to share their experiences. Youtube is short on dtails.
Nothing fancy - just something to keep the kids busy.

Thanks

 

[Nealtw]

30 years ago I had one that some one built out of an old wood table, They just extended out to be 8 ft long and set a sheet of particle board on it.
If you know anyone that works in a furniture shop, they can buy particle board or mdf in 5x10 sheets and up to 1 " thick. That would be a good start.

 

[SeniorSitizen]

I'm thinking a wood pool table wouldn't be too much different than a poker table. Our son builds these but i haven't a clue. Maybe the drink holders, modified a little, could be used in some way as pockets. Possibly a foam pad liner and bottom. I believe both stainless and plastic are available.
And not beyond the realm of possibility a solid surface of self leveling hydraulic cement poured for a covered surface.

 

[Mystriss]

Depends how professionally (or realistically) you want to play?

Plywood/MDF/Hardboard under the felt just won't play the same, it's sluggish and totally wonky on your hits and masse.

Speaking from experience, playing on a "fake" pool table without slate is the absolute worst thing ever - like basically you might as well NOT play on it because it's not enjoyable, nor is it helping you practice; in fact quite the opposite, it HURTS your league game. Husband and I were on a team some decades ago so we'd bought a used full size table to up our game on the bar size tables we did tournaments on, it was so terrible to play on that we only had it for a year [of near constant fiddling, leveling, and attempting to stabilize/sturdy up the field] before getting rid of it. At first we thought it was the table just being junk, so we bought another "highly recommended" 7 foot "fake" one new in box thinking the deflection across the length wouldn't be as bad, but it was actually worse than the 10 footer!

You could just buy the slate, and a decent quality felt, but I think that's the vast majority of the cost of the table so...

 

[Old Thomas]

My son got a nice slate pool table for free. He had to take it apart and move it. He had a professional set it up and recover it. It is beautiful and cost a fraction of the cost of a new one.

 

[Mystriss]

You can often find a good deal on a quality used table for sure. Folks get bored of them and want the space back so they're certainly out there.

Might check at billiard stores that sell tables too, the [only] one up here cosigns used tables that they give a once over, so they're in at least decent shape. We eyeballed a used full sized table in the store there, but I was pretty stuck on having my custom bar size table made (so that's what we did )