The Dude
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2010
- Location
- Portland, OR
I've been working on various framing and assembly tables for my furniture client. To be clear, they are on the "fast and cheap" side of the market so a good, sturdy and flat surface of up to 60" x 109" is needed to ensure that frames and assembly are done correctly so that the furniture sits "square" on your floor. Various layers of tops have been used, always at least 3/4" plywood with some form of steel on top. The support frame is made from 2" (0.12" wall thickness) square tubing.
The latest issues have been with rust on carbon steel and it being too thin (16 GA over 1.5" plywood) so I was going to go with SS 304-2B which has a nice smooth finish and was going to go 12 GA. I was going to do a trial with using 3M spray adhesive(which is a dry contact cement) to hold the SS onto the plywood, using a "pull out" ramp fixture to ensure that the installation process didn't create any air bubbles (one end starts with contact and gradually lowers it as the shallow ramp fixture is slowly pulled out the other end).
I talked with someone there yesterday and his concern is that temperature fluctuation will cause warping/blubbling since the only thing holding the SS down is the adhesive. One option would be to use flathead screws on countersunk holes but he is holping to go "solid steel" surface (no plywood). While I'm not against this, I'm concerned about three things: 1. What's the best design? 2. Will it be too expensive? and 3. Will there be other issues like it's too "loud and cold" (thick raw steel as opposed to thin steel over thick plywood).
Just wondering if anyone out there has experience with this kind of table construction and has any recommendations. To be clear, I'm NOT trying to come up with reasons not to go the solid steel route, I just ideally want verification and recommendations on how to do it if we would. The main issue is how to fasten a stainless top to a carbon steel frame? I have several options:
If you have any recommendations, please net me know. We currently have two frames that would need new tops (replace the thin carbon steel and plywood). They have two or three (one table top is 40" wide, the other 60" wide) long 2" square tubing rails (about 106" long) with five cross rails so "openings" on the top are as big as about 24" x 32". We could of course make these smaller to support a thicker single sheet of steel.
Thanks,
The Dude
The latest issues have been with rust on carbon steel and it being too thin (16 GA over 1.5" plywood) so I was going to go with SS 304-2B which has a nice smooth finish and was going to go 12 GA. I was going to do a trial with using 3M spray adhesive(which is a dry contact cement) to hold the SS onto the plywood, using a "pull out" ramp fixture to ensure that the installation process didn't create any air bubbles (one end starts with contact and gradually lowers it as the shallow ramp fixture is slowly pulled out the other end).
I talked with someone there yesterday and his concern is that temperature fluctuation will cause warping/blubbling since the only thing holding the SS down is the adhesive. One option would be to use flathead screws on countersunk holes but he is holping to go "solid steel" surface (no plywood). While I'm not against this, I'm concerned about three things: 1. What's the best design? 2. Will it be too expensive? and 3. Will there be other issues like it's too "loud and cold" (thick raw steel as opposed to thin steel over thick plywood).
Just wondering if anyone out there has experience with this kind of table construction and has any recommendations. To be clear, I'm NOT trying to come up with reasons not to go the solid steel route, I just ideally want verification and recommendations on how to do it if we would. The main issue is how to fasten a stainless top to a carbon steel frame? I have several options:
- Bolt thick rails and TIG weld the thin top onto the thick rails underneath (or maybe even on top using laser-cut small slots that we grind/sand smooth)
- Use weld studs under the sheet that go through holes in the frame.
- Have a thick and solid enough top frame so that a thin layer of stainless can be laid on top with just some light adhesive.
If you have any recommendations, please net me know. We currently have two frames that would need new tops (replace the thin carbon steel and plywood). They have two or three (one table top is 40" wide, the other 60" wide) long 2" square tubing rails (about 106" long) with five cross rails so "openings" on the top are as big as about 24" x 32". We could of course make these smaller to support a thicker single sheet of steel.
Thanks,
The Dude