Right now our policy is “put paper down when you are gluing”, and sometimes we provide the paper, but that is operationally and somewhat financially expensive.
Instead, I propose
putting white melamine faced ply like what we have on the outfeed table onto four of the six main tables, as well as on a removable cap for the artisanal bench-dog workbench
putting a few layers of cheap revolution ply down on the other two, and telling people that they may only use those two tables for glueup. (I propose the two tables closest to the metal shop, minimizing traffic and proximity to the working tools.) As the sacrificial ply gets used up, we can just remove the top layer and periodically replenish the stack.
A roll of brown paper is $19.99. A 4x8 sheet of 5mm plain plywood is $16 and will last longer.
The white melamine 3/4 x 4’ x 8’ ($33 at Lowe’s) sheets are $30. People who use a white table for glue-up will be invoiced for the sheet.
Hardware store melamine is better than plywood of course, but it’s not high quality melamine like cubicle work surfaces. The hardware store stuff is pretty easy to damage, the edges peel and flake.
It’d be nice to have more of the cubicle-type desktop melamine stuff, but I’ve never seen in it 4x8. That is a really superior workbench because it’s SO solid. Nothing flexes with pressure of or bounces when tapped.
One thing I did discover awhile back is phenolic. Remember that dense, super-tough, thick black plastic-y unstainable chemistry lab bench surface that nothing sticks to? That’s phenolic. I saw where it was sold on Craigslist for awhile in big sheets as skateboard ramp surface, but thinner than a lab bench of course.
There’s some on Facebook marketplace now, but it’s a ways off and I do expect they’re understating the “extremely heavy” part (should be 156 lbs). But MAN it would be excellent:
Seems expensive but pays for itself on the sixth top replacement if our labor is free, much sooner in practical terms. Let’s put the white tops in and see what the behavioral impact and observed time-to-replace of having bright clean workbenches is, and evaluate once those start looking ratty.
Anyone want to call the plastics place next door and see what they could source for us?
Hmm… although the URL has “phenolic” in it, the actual page specifies the product is Fiberglass-Reinforced Polyester. That’s not resistant to glues/stains or impacts like phenolic.
Another neat option would be Corian countertop, but that of course sounds prohibitively expensive to get new in 4ft wide stuff, if 4 ft wide is even a thing. The used stuff is not that hard to find, but only about 2ft deep. Same prob for most phenolic tabletops- only about 2 ft deep, maybe 30".
We do need to keep that butcher paper on hand. I’ve looked for it before and couldn’t find any.
You could go polyethylene (esp HDPE) or polypropylene. Or nylon or Delrin. PTFE is expensive but doesn’t have better properties.
These materials can’t be glued. You’d be forced to use screws. A knife being used against it will scratch it a bit.
Difficult with this is that it’s not going to be all that flat, if it’s just a thin plastic top layer that can’t be glued and is like 2ft between screws. And there’s a lot of reason to want a really flat work surface.
Good point. I’d be really annoyed if we spent a bunch of money on glue-up tables just to get them chewed up by sharp implements.
Looks like we could get 4x8 sheets of 1/2" HDPE if we wanted to make basically giant cutting boards. That’d be reasonably rigid in a screwed-down application. They’re about $400 (vs $600 for PTFE).
Would either of those materials be something we could resurface with a fly cutter if they got chewed up?
I don’t see it happening. Tough plastics are stringy and don’t fly cut easily. Plus, it would strike the screws. A better bet might be tiling the plastic so you could replace damaged plastic tiles. But, flatness problems.
Flip, you might look at the rockler silicon work mat. It is flexible, tough, removable and washable, glue resistant, offers a friction surface that’s not sticky. They have them on sale right now. I just ordered two of the extra-large 23.5x30”. They’re normally $44 On sale for $39. Six of them would cover a table but you could probably use 4 for most projects. I think their regular 15x30 mat Is $24. They can be connected together like puzzle pieces. They could be easily moved from table to table as they roll up. But they lay flat when they look roll out (No memory effect). They are also a great surface for sanding on as a grip your wood. They can be easily rinsed off. They are also heat proof and could be soldered on. I’m ordering a couple of them for myself.
On a temporary basis until you decide on a proper surface for the gluing tables: Use card board, usually there are card board boxes outside. Or get a big box from a refrigerator or furniture and tape the cardboard to a table and once is chewed up replace with the same. It would only cost a roll of masking tape. An alternative would be waxing the top of the table so the glue does not stick and easily removed with a scrapper or the table would not be stained too easily. A little more challenging would be to talk to a bowling alley about getting a sheet of a damaged laminate they use on the lanes (they replace them often) this material is easily scrapped clean with a scrapper and is very tough. The bad: sheets are very heavy, longer than a normal sheet of plywood and will dull the blades quick when cutting it.
Those rockler mats are probably cheaper than the butcher bill for the butcher paper — $20 roll of paper vs. $25 for the mats. 9 mats would cover 45" x 90". I’ll get some of them
For the working surfaces on non-glue/stain tables, could we use snap flooring? They come with hard finishes and look awesome.
To be clear about the design goals: We have six working tables.
Two of them are designated for glue/stain/etc.
They should be visually distinct from the others in some way: color, a label, etc
Defense-in-depth approach to keeping them useable:
Sacrificial layer eg. butcher paper or rockler mats
Either a highly robust surface or a cheap-to-replace top eg. 4x8 5mm rev ply
Not necessary that the surface be resistant to chips and bangs and dents
Four of them are not for glue/stain/etc:
Essential they look like nice clean worktops that you wouldn’t want to mess up and help you respect the space
Highly desirable that they will stand up to mechanical insult — stray hammer blows, moving around something with sharp edges, etc.
If not, they should be affordable to replace.
If laminate click flooring would be robust, we could do two different colors and knock the whole list off.
I have used laminated flooring for work surfaces in the past and it has worked very well, and I would say the laminate is actually preferable to engineered hardwood flooring for this application
Agreed. Engineered hardware is just veneered plywood, which I don’t think would be noticeably better than the benchtops we have now (unless we treat it as sacrificial and replace regularly)
I do think it’d be cool to get a big honkin 3/4" or 1" slab of solid Teflon, but I’m not volunteering to donate one
We got 4 sheets of melamine and they are on the shop tables. They are sitting lose till we get some screws to secure from the bottom. We don’t want to punch screws in from the top.
The melamine is great @joe! We just all need to work to protect it. I have thought about making a bench vice For the tables and mounting tools on a small piece of durable plywood such as Baltic Birch with a 2 x 2 screwed to the bottom. You could then clamp These bench tools in the vice. I’ve even thought about making a metal plate with a pad on the bottom which would clamp into the vice so that you could bang on it without damaging the table. I was going to do this at home with things like belt sanders, small drill presses, Vices, and anything else you could bolt down to a piece of plywood. This would be versatile on mobile. We could also have smaller pieces of sacrificial wood in case somebody really has to drive a nail or a screw into it.
