Formica in sheets is somewhat difficult to obtain here due our rural location. Are there any good alternatives for a router table top? Home Depot has 1/16" vinyl sheets with a matte finish that looks like it might work. Anyone use this?
[OP]
Contributor
Formica in sheets is somewhat difficult to obtain here due our rural location. Are there any good alternatives for a router table top? Home Depot has 1/16" vinyl sheets with a matte finish that looks like it might work. Anyone use this?
Member
Home depot can order Formica for you.
Gerry
JointCAM
What will your top substrate be made of? Typically we avoid ply due to the irregularity of the surface. MDF is popular whether laminated with something else or not. My top is melamine and here's what it looks like after about a 7 years of regular use:
RT top at 7 years.jpg
The anodizing on the lift-plate is scratched but, the melamine is fine.
My new workbench top is MDF since the previous bench was made the same way and outlasted my use of the bench. For a router table top, two sheets of laminated 3/4" MDF wiped with BLO, let cure for a few weeks and then wax the top. Here's my old benchtop after more than 8 years of daily use:
Long rows.JPG
Laminates are nice but, not required IMHO. If I were making a new RT top I would not hesitate to just use MDF, oiled and waxed.
"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".
– Samuel Butler
Contributor
I got a couple of laminate kitchen sink cutouts for $2-3 each from local installer. Just the right size for a router table. There must be somebody local who installs for Home Depot.
Contributor
What Glen said. My top is two layers of 3/4" MDF glued together. It is 6 years old with a lift and big PC router in it. No issues at all. I did, however, poly it. I would not hesitate to just oil and wax though.
Member
I like corian. If you call around you can probably find a scrap for almost nothing.
Member
MDO is slick & tough, if you can source it.
Member
I also use a sink cutout edged by maple. Works great and the price was right. The particle board is very high density. I backed it with plywood.
Contributor
I used some scraps of synthetic bowling alley flooring. It's a little less than a half inch thick, absolutely flat, and solid harder than a rock phenolic. If you can live with the fake Maple woodgrain, it's ideal.
Contributor
Plain MDF with a paste wax finish.
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