How to Move a Slate Pool Table (Three-Piece)
Right, here’s a yarn. About four years ago a mate in Adamstown bought his dream house, and the deal included taking the previous owner’s 7-foot slate pool table off their hands. Beautiful old Heiron & Smith from the 90s, custom rails, real felt. Catch was, it lived in the garage of the old place and had to come 12km to the new place. He rang three pool-table specialists — quotes came back at $850, $950 and a bloke who wouldn’t quote on the phone. He rang me on a Saturday morning. We did it that arvo with four blokes, $40 of removal blankets, and three slabs of beer between us. The table plays better at the new house than it did at the old one because we levelled it properly during reassembly.
Pool table specialists charge $600 to $1,200 to move a 7-foot three-piece slate. Some of that’s expertise, fair enough — but a fair chunk of it’s the assumption that you don’t know what you’re doing and they need to charge for the risk. With four mates, $40 of removal blankets, and an afternoon, you can DIY it. The slate is heavy but it’s not magic.
The thing every YouTube tutorial gets wrong is the disassembly order. They show you ripping the felt off first like it’s a tablecloth. Don’t. Felt comes off after the rails, not before — and on a three-piece slate the slates separate before the frame, not after. Get the order wrong and you’ll twist the frame, crack a slate corner, or best case spend two hours figuring out why the table won’t go back together.
The Aussie-specific bit: locally-made tables (CueGarden, Quedos, Heiron & Smith) build differently to the American Brunswicks and Olhausens you see in US tutorials. Aussie rails screw from underneath into threaded inserts, not from the side through the cushion. The slate seams are keyed with dowels, not floating, which means you must lift slates straight up — not slide them — or you’ll snap the dowels off.
What you’ll need
- 4 strong adults — one slate piece is 80–110kg
- $40 of removal blankets (5 minimum) from Bunnings or eBay
- A power drill with Phillips and square-drive bits — Makita or Ryobi do fine
- 13mm and 17mm sockets (rail bolts)
- A staple lifter (for old felt, optional)
- A flat-blade scraper
- Small ziplock bags and a marker (for hardware sorting)
- Painter’s tape and a marker for slate orientation
- Old bath towels — protect the slate edges
- A 1.2m spirit level — Bahco, Stabila, or Stanley
Step 1: Photograph everything before you touch a screw
Every angle. Pocket cluster, rail screw layout, where the felt seams sit, the underside of the table. You’ll thank yourself in 4 hours when reassembly is happening at 9pm and the lighting’s gone. I do 30+ photos minimum on every move — front, back, both ends, every screw cluster, the underside, the rail-to-cabinet joins. Phone storage is cheap; redoing a job is expensive.
Step 2: Remove the pockets and pocket cradles
Six pockets, usually attached to the rails with leather straps and Phillips screws. Some are stapled — use the staple lifter. Bag the screws and tag the bag “POCKETS — 6× screws”. Drop the pockets in a separate plastic tub so they don’t get mixed up with rail bolts.
Step 3: Unscrew the rails — from underneath, not the side
This is where Aussie tables differ from Yank ones. Get under the table with the drill. You’ll see 3 bolts per rail (sometimes 4 on premium 9-foot tables) coming up through the cabinet frame into threaded inserts in the rail. Back them out anti-clockwise.
Each rail is 15–25kg. Two people lift each rail off — straight up, don’t drag — and stack them felt-side-up on a blanket on the floor. Bag the rail bolts in a labelled ziplock per rail (so they go back in the right holes — they’re not always identical lengths).
Step 4: Don’t strip the felt yet — leave it on the slate
Counterintuitive but correct. The felt is glued or stapled to the underside of the slate’s rail seam. If you tear it off now you’ve doubled the reupholstery cost at the other end. The felt comes off only if you’re getting the table re-clothed during the move; if you’re keeping the existing felt, leave it stapled.
Common mistake: removalists who do this for a living rip the felt anyway because they’ve got a side-deal with a re-clother. Be aware that’s a thing.
Step 5: Mark the slate seam orientation
Painter’s tape on each slate, marker arrow showing “FRONT — pocket end” and a number (1, 2, 3 — left to right as you face the head spot). Aussie three-piece slates are keyed with hardwood dowels at the seams. They only fit back together one way and the dowels snap if you force a slate in 180° from how it came out. Definately label every piece.
Step 6: Lift the slates straight up — never slide
This is the moment you need 4 people. Each slate piece is 80–110kg on a 7-foot, 100–135kg on an 8-foot. Position one person on each corner. On a count of three, lift the slate straight up 50mm to clear the dowels, then walk it sideways and set it on a blanket on the floor.
If you slide the slate towards you to get a grip, you’ll snap the alignment dowels. Replacement dowels are a router job — don’t risk it. Listen mate, this is the moment in the whole process where injury happens — backs, fingers, dropped slate. Brief the crew first, do a practice count without lifting, agree on which corner is “leading”. Then go.
Step 7: Stack slates separated, not on top of each other
Slate doesn’t like sitting on slate. Each piece goes on its own blanket, ideally leaning against a wall vertically with a towel between the slate edge and the floor to stop chipping. If you must stack, two thick blankets between each slate piece, no metal bolts or hardware caught between them.
Step 8: Disassemble the cabinet frame
Once the slate is off, the cabinet (legs + apron rails) is just a heavy wood box. Most Aussie tables have leg bolts you can back out — turn the table on its side carefully, drop the legs off. If yours has fixed legs, the whole cabinet ships as one unit and needs 4 people to lift onto the truck. If you’re also moving heavy furniture same day, similar lifting rules to our move an upright piano guide apply — same end, same direction, push not pull.
Step 9: Load the truck — slate first, against the cab wall
Slate is the heaviest, most fragile bit. Load it first, vertical, leaning against the cab end of the truck box, blanket-padded. Strap with a ratchet across the middle. Cabinet next, legs in a separate bag. Rails on top of soft cargo (sofa cushions). Pockets, hardware bags, and felt scraps in a labelled tub right at the door so you can find them at unloading.
If you’ve got the table going via trailer rather than a closed truck, check our move spa hot tub guide which covers ramp loading for heavy gear.
Step 10: At the other end — assembly is reverse, plus levelling
Cabinet first, levelled with a 1.2m spirit level on top of the apron rails. Shim with hardwood wedges if the floor isn’t flat (most floors aren’t, especially older Aussie homes on stumps). Slates next, in numbered order, dowels engaged — you’ll feel them seat with a soft click. Re-level across the slate seams with the spirit level; this is the make-or-break step. A 1mm dip across a seam means the cue ball “rolls off” — every player will notice.
Beeswax the slate seams (food-grade beeswax from Bunnings, around $8) to fill any micro-gap before the felt goes back on. Then rails, then pockets, in reverse of disassembly. Rail bolts get cross-tightened (opposite corners alternating) so the rail seats evenly. For the cabinet shimming step, similar method to laying pavers on a sand base — small adjustments at each corner until the spirit level reads true across both axes.
When to call a tradie
Most three-piece slate moves are DIY-able with four mates. But there’s situations to flag for a specialist. One, if the table’s irreplaceable — a custom-built showroom piece or an antique Alcock — pay the specialist for the insurance and conservation. Two, if you don’t have four healthy adults available; three-person moves of 100kg slate end badly. Three, if the new location has stairs between the truck and the room — slate up stairs is a specialist job with proper stair-skids, not a “we’ll be careful” DIY moment. The medical bill for a slate-related back injury makes the $1,000 specialist look cheap.
Common screw-ups
- Stripping the felt first because YouTube said so — doubles the re-clothing cost at the other end
- Sliding the slate to get a grip instead of lifting straight up — snaps the alignment dowels
- Not labelling slate order and orientation — pieces don’t fit back together at the new house
- Stacking slates directly on each other — chips the edges every time
- Skipping the cabinet-level step before slate goes back on — table plays “off” forever after
Cost & time
Blankets $40, hardware bags $5, food-grade beeswax $8. Total kit under $60. Beer for the crew, $50–80. Time-wise, disassembly is 90 minutes, drive an hour, reassembly with levelling 2 hours. Whole job done in an afternoon with four mates. Compare $1,000 quote from a specialist.
Wrap-up
If you’ve got 4 mates, an afternoon, and a free pizza budget, you’ll move a three-piece slate yourself for the cost of beer. If you’ve got 3 mates and a tight schedule, pay the specialist. The job’s not technically hard; it’s the lifting and the levelling that catches people. Don’t strip the felt early, lift slates vertically, label everything in order, and the table will play exactly the same at the new house. Get the level wrong by a millimetre and you’ll be re-shimming for a week. Easy as — if you respect the slate.
