Need Help Designing Large Table

Jon Farley

Member
Messages
7
Location
Mifflin County, PA
I need to put together a design/bid for a large conference table. It will be about 4' by 8' with a boat-shaped top and trestle-style legs. The customer wants a formica top with oak banding, legs and stringer.

I'm in the 'design' process and am having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of how to get the necessary structural rigidity and flatness to the top, which I am assuming I will do with the formica laminated to MDF. Should I be looking to some sort of torsion box design? Please help!
 
jon, most wholesalers offer honeycombed substraight material just for this purpose in sheets up to 5x12........i don`t consider it to be a "high quality" product.....but for laminating formica it works pretty well.....you`d need to build your frame and use the honeycomb as a fill then laminate both sides but it makes a light, stable top.......if you go with mdf you`ll need to provide some way to keep it flat.....either with some type of frame underneath or by laminating both sides or both........by trestel are you talking about a 72"x24" pedestal or a single 16" diameter post? how thick can your top be? the base and top thickness are your major limiting factors......that and when building conference tables i try to make them where folks can sit on the edge without damaging the table......it happens:eek: .....tod
 
What I would do...

1 1/8" 45 lb density particle board laminated with plam both sides or plam and backer with urea resin glue, this is very stiff.

Does a 1 piece 4x8 top clear all the doorways stairs elevators and what have you? I'd assemble the trestle on site.

Good luck!
 
jon, i don`t:eek: ......i`ve never had cause to use it.......i saw it in a flyer from either paxton or hogan quite a few years back....sorry, tod
 
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