Plastic Table Finish

I made this table top from a glue-up panel sold at Menards and edge-banded it with Ipe. It's what Drew was discussing above.



The single post didn't work out for me so I have since, replaced it with a two-leg table set. Now, I can even move the table outside, if desired and the legs fold up so that the table becomes a bed platform.

tommymick wrote:
I guess "vacuum-formed" is a better term. It's a particle-board table, with a plastic covering, similar to (but NOT) Formica. It wraps smoothly around the round corners and bull-nose edge, which is why I think it was vacuum-shrunk on there.

That sounds like standard, run-of-the-mill laminate. It might be built at the factory using a vacuum press system to hold the laminate while it's glued on, but I don't think that's a necessity. Often laminate is applied using a contact adhesive, at least when done onesey-twosey.

Maybe e.g. Gorilla Glue could reattach the laminate to the substrate, assuming the latter is still sound (and hasn't decomposed due to getting wet or something similar). Failing that, a moderate amount of woodworking ought to suffice to build a solid wood edging that replaces the factory wrap-around edging, and if everything is built carefully and assembled carefully (and the existing top trimmed to size carefully) could look pretty nice.

Building a table top is not inherently a particularly complicated task, though it can be a bit irksome to get everything square and level and matched up, depending on what materials one uses. Cutting one out of plywood and applying iron-on edging or something similar would probably be about the simplest and least tricky approach. (Maybe a pre-assembled built up panel from a big box store, with several narrow boards glued together, would be a bit simpler still; just cut and apply an appropriate finish.)

I guess "vacuum-formed" is a better term. It's a particle-board table, with a plastic covering, similar to (but NOT) Formica. It wraps smoothly around the round corners and bull-nose edge, which is why I think it was vacuum-shrunk on there.

Pics? I've never heard of a plastic shrink-wrapped RV table, not sure what you're talking about.

I made my own table from 3/4 inch birch plywood. I didn’t have a choice.I had a horse shoe shaped dinette and it didn’t work for me. I took out the seat against the wall and made it a booth.

A friend just built a topper out of wood to go over his existing table top. He used 1/4 inch flooring with a border out of matching oak so it didn't raise the top of the table much.