Sawdust on the Floor

Having made the decision to rework the table on my Delta Unisaw, I had two what should have easy, tasks in front of me. My idea was to rebuild the existing top that was starting to delaminate, to include components of the Kreg Klamp Table. So the first step was to order the desired components from one of the larger woodworking stores. Ordering the components actually created a nice surprise, one of the pieces I wanted as actually on sale, Hooray!! If luck holds out for me these parts should arrive sometime this week end.

 While I waited for the parts to arrive, I went to work on building a new table top. The original top was simply a piece of ¾” particle board with a thin laminate on the top and sides. Since this combination had already failed, I knew that I wanted to use something different for my new table top. The question then became what type of materials to use.

The local big DIY stores offered several options. The first was the same old thing, particle board and laminate. I don’t have a problem with the laminate; it’s the particle board that I didn’t want to use. My table top is 48” long, and 27” wide. A single piece of particle board this size just doesn’t have a lot of structural stability. Particle board doesn’t really stand up well to any type of liquid, which I try to keep off my tablesaw, but sometimes the top is used for finishing and stuff gets spilled. So the particle board was out.

The next option offered, was to use a piece of MDF, and cover it with laminate. MDF doesn’t have the same stability issues that particle board has, but man it is really heavy.
Ok, I know that I had concerns about the Kreg Table not being heavy enough. But hear me out here, please. In my design of the new table top, I planned to install a section of Kreg track. This track is 2 ¼”wide, by ¾” tall, each section is 34“ long. I wanted this track to be recessed below the surface of the table top, because if it protruded above the top, it would be in the way when I used the Unisaw to cut wood. My plan was to completely remove the wood in the area that the track was to be installed in. That meant that I would have to install a second layer of MDF or what ever I used on the bottom of the top piece. Other wise I would not have any thing to bolt the track down to.

Remember, that we are laying the MDF/particle board horizontally. It is supported only on the far end, away from the actual Unisaw by a couple of legs. Along both the front and rear edge of the table there are metal support beams. The edges of the table top are bolted into these support beams. With the MDF, I was convinced that this second piece would add so much weight that it would be really hard to install the top and keep level with out a lot of additional support. I could have added more legs under the table, but I really wanted to keep the area under the table as open as possible. This is really valuable storage space. So the MDF was out.

The next consideration was to use sheets of melamine. One of the stores had sheets pre mounted in 4’ by 8’ sheets. I have no experience working with melamine, so I went on line to see what kind of problems I might encounter. The first thing I found out was that there was no consensus on how to cut sheets of melamine without chipping the surface of the melamine. Several articles that I read suggested the use of special saw blades, made by Festool. I don’t currently own any Festools, so I can’t make any comments on the quality of them. But I do know that they don’t sell any thing at bargain prices.  And since I didn’t plan on cutting a lot of  Melamine, I really couldn’t justify the prices that Festool wanted for the blades. The second problem goes back to adding the second layer of material. I couldn’t find any good information on gluing two sheets of melamine together, and the final issue with the melamine sheets was the stiffness of the sheets, or should I say the lack of stiffness.

To recap, I had considered and passed on particle board, MDF and sheets of melamine for a number of reasons. That didn’t leave me a lot of options. I looked into purchasing a new table from Delta, but that presented two problems, the cost and the fact that it was made of particle board. No way was I going to go that way again. So what was left? I settled on using a sheet of good old ¾” plywood that I planned to cover with Formica. One of the reasons that I bypassed this option in the beginning was the costs, I only needed a small piece of the Formica, but I could only find it in full size 4’X8’ sheets. I couldn’t think of any future project that I could use the Formica on, but this was the only option that made sense. As for the plywood, that really never goes to waste in my shop.  So I purchased a full size sheet of both the Formica and the ¾ plywood and returned to my shop.

Because all of the other parts I wanted have not yet arrived I think it would be prudent to wait to actually start cutting wood. I don’t want to ruin the top before I even start to work on it.

Related posts:

1. Woodworking Tool Review – Kreg Klamp Table