Has anyone tried using a solid core door as a glue up table?

[scott vroom]

I've been told they're dead flat.

[Joe Scharle]

My big table is solid door and it's flat. But some solid doors I've seen have a slight warp. You have to look.

[Mike McCann]

a hollow core door is dead flat. they are cheap and a lot lighter to move around.

[johnny means]

I have been raving about the virtues of hollow core doors for years. Cheap, light , flat, they make the perfect occasional work surface.

[scott vroom]

a hollow core door is dead flat. they are cheap and a lot lighter to move around.

As one poster pointed out, you have to be careful about tightening a clamp on a hollow core door: if the clamp head is positioned over a hollow space it might damage the skin. I guess this could be solved by gluing 3/8 MDF or plywood on the bottom of the door.

[scott vroom]

Johnny, what kind of stand did you make for your hollow door table? How did you attach it to the table top?

[John McClanahan]

Doors are designed for vertical use. A solid core door as a table will sag over time if it is not well supported. hollow core doors are spongy between the internal frame. Not trying to discourage their use, just be aware.

John

[Phil Thien]

Solid core doors start flat, but they're just particle board on the inside and will sag. I use one for my bench top but I save support in the middle as well as both ends, and it stays flat.

[Wayne Sparkman]

How about using the hollow core door as the basis of a torsion box, skinning it with mdf on one, or preferably both, sides?

[Stephen Edwards]

I have both hollow core and solid core door/tables in my shop. The solid core has no sag at all and is dead flat. The hollow core has a little sag if it has a lot of weight on it. If I had a proper frame under it I don't think that it would have any sag at all. They're both very useful.

Some of the newer solid core doors are filled with some kind of really dense fiber material, not PB or MDF. The stuff is actually stringy on the inside!

[Carroll Courtney]

I agree,w/hollow core doors.I have acouple of small saw horses that fold up and a door.Set the horses up,lay the HC on top and I have a surface for my miter saw.----Carroll
The solid doors are also good for fix work surface.

[David DeCristoforo]

Well, if you think about it, "skinned" doors are really just "kinda thin" torsion boxes. They are actually pretty rigid. Probably not going to last forever but not really expensive to replace either. When I used to do a lot of job site work, it seemed like there were always a couple of work surfaces cobbled up from doors that were too flawed to use for anything else. The point about hollow core doors not having much substance is well taken. Many of these are simply wood frames made from 3/4" pine skinned with eighth inch ply with cardboard spacers to keep the skins flat.

[johnny means]

Johnny, what kind of stand did you make for your hollow door table? How did you attach it to the table top?

I just toss it up on a couple of folding saw horses. Then I hang it all on the wall when i'm done with it. I wouldn't use a hollow core as a permanent surface, which is bound to be abused more than a temporary glue up surface.

[Denny Rice]

Scott,

I don't know if you seen the episode of the NYW a couple of years ago when Norm built a new workshop table that he uses 90% of the time. It's based on a hollow-core door design (he got the idea from the PBS design department) I just recently ordered the plans, they look pretty straight forward and I like the idea is the table is mobile too.