Materials for Table Top

[andrew whicker]

Hi all,

I'm trying to find out what kind of material could meet my criteria. The drawing of what I want is below.

I need:

- scratch resistant
- attaches to wood (screws might be okay)
- comes in .5" thickness
- transparent
- colored (I want green)

I looked into acrylics, but I'm sort of hitting a wall. I'm getting the picture that acrylics will scratch easily. The anti scratch coatings seem to be for clear plastics only. The other more scratch resistant materials are all opaque. Maybe this design can be done with glass? I was thinking of mitering the plastic / glass at the edges where they mate together.

The top will have some support on each piece, but would be better if the piece could hold itself together.

Cheers,

table top 1.jpg

table top 2.jpg

[Jamie Buxton]

Yeah, glass is substantially more scratch resistant than plastics. It can be had in 1/2" thickness. Not sure about green glass in that thickness. It is technically feasible, but it might just not be out there.
I wouldn't try to do a tight miter at the corners. You'd have knife edges on each piece of glass, which would be a fragile point or even downright dangerous. I'd do a butt joint, with the top resting on the sides.
You'll also need something to reinforce those long corner joints. I'd use rectangular pieces of glass, with the plane of glass running the long direction on the top.

You should give us some dimensions.
And while you're adding that detail, what do you mean "attaches to wood"? Where is that in the drawing?

[andrew whicker]

Thanks for all the info!

I'll see what I can do with dim's in sketchup. Unfortunately, my computer only runs 2016 and I can't get licensed for 2016.

The top is 18" deep, 48" long.
The vertical pieces are 6" long
The short horizontal pieces are 3.5" lg


I'm working on the wood design right now, but it's going to be tree branches like.. so small areas of contact. At least that's what I'm thinking so far. I'll work on it and show you what I'm thinking when I get further along.

[Wayne Lomman]

I agree glass is the way to go. You will be able to get it the colour you want if you use laminated. Go for butt joints, not mitre. Better still, get it bent to shape. $$$$ though. Cheers

[Dave Richards]

For durability, glass is definitely the way to go but consider that with 1/2-in.-thick glass, you'll be at about 54 pounds so you need to design the rest of your table to support that weight.

[Sam Murdoch]

... and nix those returns at the floor. They will always be a nuisance for cleaning or moving the table and having it sit level and they make no good contribution to the design or function IMHO.

Perhaps a couple of support brackets as feet - similar to this but perhaps more rectangular.

Glass_Panel_Connector_0.38_0.jpg