"The world's most perfect work bench top"

josquin

josquin

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I just came across this thread on the S&W Forum. I'd not heard of Sintra (an expanded PVC sheet material) but it would seem to be a good product for the purpose.

Aside from that, this guy's workshop is mightily impressive, not to mention his range of interests. The shop looks cleaner than a hospital operating theatre (!) By his own admission, he's "a little OCD" about keeping things clean and tidy. (Oh, I wish...)

:)
 
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There is actually a better material than Sintra for workbench tops.

It's a composite material that is used for wear surfaces in industry. There are several different names for it but it is very expensive. Ten years ago it was around $2000 per 4ft x 6ft sheet.

When the plant I worked at shut down I was lucky enough to be able to pick up a half sheet of 1in thick and a third sheet of half in thick.

It can be sawn, drilled and tapped, hammered on and shows zero wear as well as being self healing, unless a piece is deliberately taken out. We called it PE 1000 and it was so tough it stood up to crushed glass.

There was also a carbon composite material that was ungodly expensive but it lasted for years with no signs of wear with metal belts running on them and through machined tracks.

I have a one foot square piece of this stuff and other than it's to slippery for some work it's great stuff.

There is a type of plastic we used to make rubber conveyor belt scrapers out of. I don't remember the name of it. It wasn't hard but it wasn't flexible either. It did eventually wear down but salt grain sized glass particles from the crusher is incredibly abrasive. It even wore down Chrome Carbide.
 
For 50 years a wood top with appropriate mats has worked well for all my disassembly/assembly of firearms. Plus a large vise with padded jaws...

What do you intend to do that would require something special...
 
Sintra can be had from Liard plastics in Port Kells if anyone is interested. No affiliation, shop I work at buys a ton of frp from there.
 
I'm a real believer in hard use bench tops having a sacrificial layer over top of a rigid and well supported underlying structure. So something like an easily replaced layer of Sintra or puckboard is a grand idea if it won't absorb solvents and oils.

In fact I was going to use a top of puckboard over the double layer of 3/4 fir plywood as a finishing layer. But after buying and trying a small piece of the puckboard as a work mat I found that it does scratch easily. It also allows metal chips to embed into the surface easily. And those need to be picked out to avoid scratching some other item later on that might be dragged over these chips. So it's not ideal.

From searching "puckboard" it came back that it's basically UHMW PVC with some colorant added. The colorant or some other formula item may be causing it to be softer than UHMW PVC normally might be. I've got some UHMW cutting mats that don't scratch as easily or allow metal chips to dig in as easily.

Being a foamed process material I wonder about these factors with the Sintra. Foaming the PVC is likely going to make it softer, not harder. So for this and other reasons I'd give some a try as a sacrificial layer. But I would not expect it to last forever. But it would be way better than any masonite or other wood fiber based options.
 
I use solid core doors for workbench tops. I've been lucky enough to get mine for free from an office renovator but they can be picked up cheaply at reuse centers.
 
bearhunter said:
It's a composite material that is used for wear surfaces in industry. There are several different names for it but it is very expensive. Ten years ago it was around $2000 per 4ft x 6ft sheet.
Click to expand...

It's better if you don't have to pay for it outta your own pocket, I guess.

Was your stuff a sort of medium brown color? We used a very expensive sheet material for rub wear pucks on the F-18 flaps, IIRC. Christly expensive, but they were small and you could get a lot out of a foot square sheet.
I made many of them.

I am not that OCD guy. I have worked on wood, particle board, stainless steel, and formica tops. I liked using a add on layer of medium density fiberboard on the top of the workbnch. Cheap to replace, easy to scrape away any embedded stuff, and easy on the drill bits and other cutting tools used.

I figure a couple sections of runner carpet off the bulk roll at WalMart will do for preventing scratches, if needed, while working on tractor and ATV parts takes something different entirely. FWIW I HATED working on stainless bench tops. The only good thing about them was that the oil would not soak in. It ran across the bench onto the floor instead, the work skated around while you were dealing with it, and tools would be knocked over hell and creation too.

Cheers
Trev
 
No matter what your work surface, a piece of magnetic sign vinyl can be useful when disassembling things with tiny little screws or springs which otherwise might fly into an inaccessible corner. Only slight disadvantage is that it has to be put back (black, magnetic) side up as things can be harder to see. Sign shops will sell it to you by the foot.

A nice general-purpose surface is Borco; like the sign vinyl, it's a laminated vinyl sheet that was designed for drawing boards. I think it may be still available even though mechanical draughting has been pretty much replaced by CAD. As I recall it was available in white and a medium-light green. Probably sign vinyl is about the same price, though.
 
Tough as #### ......cheap. A inexpensive and easily replaced top is what I call "marker board". Screw it to a tough top. It's basically 1/16" board with one white side, used in classrooms for the erasable markers. About quarter the price of plywood, to especially since the wildfires have seen 40% increase in plywood price.
 
My workbench is all wood, but I've added a uhmw section, a steel section for welding and grinding, and left some wood. I also have a large foam pad hanging nearby for gun cleaning etc. No one surface can do everything I need.
 
My "rough use" bench top is plain old laminate flooring, the $1.39/sq ft stuff. Waterproof and pretty tough. You can either glue it down or use a few screws if it needs to be replaced down the road. Mine is light colored.
 
Stuff just keep rolling off my bench...

1490287012913-DSC_6574.jpeg
 
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