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Posted 20 hours ago

BRIO World Play Table for Kids Age 3 Years Up - Compatible with all BRIO Railway Sets & Accessories

£9.9£99Clearance
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About this deal

You can trim the laminate with a dedicated laminate trimmer or with a small router. A laminate trimmer is really just an even smaller, hand-held router, but it a less flexible tool for the money. A small router, like the Porter Cable 690LR or equivalent, won’t cost much more and will give you the abilities of a full router should you choose to do woodworking in the future. Or you can borrow or rent a router instead of buying, of course. Laminate is my preferred surface for a train table top because it is tough and durable, and as a bonus it is extremely easy to apply to plywood. This is truly a DIY project that can be completed in just a couple of hours that does not require a great deal of expertise, expensive tools, or special equipment. I did my very first surface completely on my own with great success, despite never having used any of the equipment before, or owning any of the equipment beforehand, or ever having done any woodworking before, ever. The hardest part of this project was transporting the plywood. If someone like me with no experience can do it, then so can you. For larger layouts, I recommend using 4’x8′ 3/4″ hardwood plywood sheets cut do a 3′ depth, and using the full 8′ width. Again, the 4′ depth seems convenient as that would eliminate the need for a cut, but this is well beyond a person’s normal reach and many lumber supply stores will do one cut for free. While fiber boards like MDF, HDF, particle board, and the like are tempting options because of their cost, I would avoid them for large train tables unless you plan on supporting the entire underside with an extremely stiff surface, or will be building a torsion box. These engineered wood products can be flatter and more easily worked with tools, but the short fibers cannot support their own weight over a long span so the sheets will bow in the center, just like cheap book shelving. It will cost more to get a true, hardwood plywood sheet that is nice and flat, but it will be significantly stronger than an engineered wood product. A sheet of 3/4″ pre-finished maple plywood, cut to a 3′ depth, supported by card tables. The same plywood sheet, covered with green paper. The plywood sheet again, with Wilsonart Hunter Green formica laminate applied to the surface.

Alas, plywood in the U.S. comes in 4’x8′ sheets which means you’ll be making cuts and wasting some wood (and some laminate) if you want to keep your layouts to this base size. While it’s tempting to drop down to a 24″ depth to make more efficient use of a sheet, the large curves are too constrained by this narrow space. Going up to a 48″ depth also seems convenient, but it creates a problem with physical reach if you want to place the long edge against a wall. I find a 36″ depth to be the best balance between usable and reachable space. Plywood Sheets

Custom Tables for Semi-Permanent Layouts

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