Editing Billiard table (section)

===Bed===
The bed table – the cloth-covered, horizontal playing surface&nbsp;– is, on high-quality equipment, made of solid, smooth slabs of [[slate]], most often from Italy, Brazil or China. Small pool tables may use only one or two pieces of slate, while carom, English billiards and tournament-size pool tables use three. Full-size snooker tables require five. The gap between slates is filled with a hard-drying putty, epoxy or resin, then sanded to produce a seamless surface, before being covered with the cloth. When several pieces of slate are joined poorly it is possible for the resin to deform and cause an uneven playing surface; it can also be difficult to move once joined.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}}

Tables for the home market usually use slate beds as well, but the slate is often thinner, down to about {{nowrap|{{frac||1|2}} inch (13&nbsp;mm)}}. The early table beds were made of cloth-covered wooden boards. Today, inexpensive but not very rigid or durable materials used for the beds of low-end tables (e.g. for children's [[recreation room]]s) still include wood, especially [[medium-density fibreboard]] and [[plywood]], as well as plastics and other synthetic materials under various trade names.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}}