Particle board and glue.

[Darius Ferlas]

That day has come when I need to make a new router table.
I have a few 1" thick laminated particle boards. The laminate layer is pretty beefy and the boards are perfectly flat.

I plan to edge the table with some hardwood using dowels and glue.
Does anyone know if I should I be concerned about possible swelling of the particle board around the glued edges?

[Howard Acheson]

What is the laminate? Is it a standard thickness plastic laminate? Plastic laminate is what you want. A melimine surface is not very durable for something like a router table.

I would strongly recommend applying a plastic laminate on the bottom. Particle board laminated on only one side can pick up moisture in the bottom causing it to warp. Get any cheap plastic laminate and use contact cement to attach it.

[Darius Ferlas]

It is plastic laminate and it's pretty thick. It looks like it's around 1/16" and on both sides, so my concern is not with that part, but rather with whether the glue applied to the edges (these are not laminated) will cause the swelling around the perimeter of the board.

[Jamie Buxton]

There won't be much swelling from the little water that's in the thin glue layer you're going to make.

BTW, you don't need dowels to hold the edging on. Just butt-glue it on. Cut it a little wider than you need, glue it on, and plane it flush. Or use a flush-trim bit in a router.

[Richard McComas]

What is the laminate? Is it a standard thickness plastic laminate? Plastic laminate is what you want. A melimine surface is not very durable for something like a router table.

I would strongly recommend applying a plastic laminate on the bottom. Particle board laminated on only one side can pick up moisture in the bottom causing it to warp. Get any cheap plastic laminate and use contact cement to attach it.I work in the carpenters shop for the Anchorage School district. We have a unisaw. We took a 4x8 sheet of melamine covered particle board and cut out an area so it would surround the saw on 3 sides to make an out feed table. With 9 carpenter using that setup daily it lasted 12 years. In my experience I though is was pretty durable.