Thin vinyl / tough paper in large sheet? (painting, furniture, bathroom)
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Okay, slightly weird topic for this forum, but I suspect if anyone has a good answer, they hang in here.
I have a professional drafting table I picked up cheap many years ago — an engineering review firm in our building was closing the office and had ten of them at fire-sale prices; I paid $100 for what was then a $2k piece of furnture. I've carefully disassembled and moved it five times now.
I just got the combination of weather, time and physical ability to finishing repainting its slightly battered finish (originally that horrid "putty" - gaahhh) and I'm about to slide it into place here in my office.
I've almost always used a cover for the vast melamine surface and the good condition of the tilt top shows it. However, the "real thing" - that pale green vinyl used on drafting surfaces, would set me back $80 plus significant shipping. Just can't justify it.
So I need a smooth, fairly hard (if slightly reslient), fold-and-crease free cover material at least 37.5 x 72 inches. A thin, hard vinyl; heavy plasticized paper; heavier plain paper... anything that can take light 'graphics station' abuse, protect the table top, be replaceable once a year or so, and be fairly cheap.
I've also considered a piece of thin bathroom-wall paneling, plain white and smooth, but it would have icky edges unless I found a way to cover them.
Any ideas where I might find such a sheet or roll good?
I'm not sure any are open near me. But a good suggestion of where to look, when/if.
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Alternately you could get 1/8" tempered Masonite and cut to fit.
A piece of Formica cut to size?
Yeah, I put hard goods on all my workbenches. A quarter inch of cheap plywood means you have a fresh new heavy-dirty-workbench any time you want to spend $10 on it.
This is a little more demanding and a slightly softer material would be good.
Quote:
Do you need to be able to stick compass points into it?
Not since about 1997. Used to, though; I did all kinds of complex layouts and things like circuit board design with Old School Toys.
The pro covers that are exactly the right consistency and self-healing against compass points and light knife cuts are lovely... but just too darned expensive any more.
Alternately you could get 1/8" tempered Masonite and cut to fit.
A piece of Formica cut to size?
Do you need to be able to stick compass points into it?
Those all sound good. I'll also suggest, if you want to change the pattern or background out sometimes, that you use a layer of oilcloth covered with a thin sheet of Plexiglass, or perhaps you could just polyurethane the oilcloth after it was applied.
Okay, slightly weird topic for this forum, but I suspect if anyone has a good answer, they hang in here.
I have a professional drafting table I picked up cheap many years ago — an engineering review firm in our building was closing the office and had ten of them at fire-sale prices; I paid $100 for what was then a $2k piece of furnture. I've carefully disassembled and moved it five times now.
I just got the combination of weather, time and physical ability to finishing repainting its slightly battered finish (originally that horrid "putty" - gaahhh) and I'm about to slide it into place here in my office.
I've almost always used a cover for the vast melamine surface and the good condition of the tilt top shows it. However, the "real thing" - that pale green vinyl used on drafting surfaces, would set me back $80 plus significant shipping. Just can't justify it.
So I need a smooth, fairly hard (if slightly reslient), fold-and-crease free cover material at least 37.5 x 72 inches. A thin, hard vinyl; heavy plasticized paper; heavier plain paper... anything that can take light 'graphics station' abuse, protect the table top, be replaceable once a year or so, and be fairly cheap.
I've also considered a piece of thin bathroom-wall paneling, plain white and smooth, but it would have icky edges unless I found a way to cover them.
Any ideas where I might find such a sheet or roll good?
If you have a furniture store or office supply you could look into protective blotter materials for desks. A drafting supply online might also have something.
If you have a furniture store or office supply you could look into protective blotter materials for desks. A drafting supply online might also have something.
Blotter stuff doesn't come that large, usually, and when you get into the real drafting stuff from its drastically shrunken market, it's pretty expensive and/or has costly shipping.
Blotter stuff doesn't come that large, usually, and when you get into the real drafting stuff from its drastically shrunken market, it's pretty expensive and/or has costly shipping.
I miss drafting supply stores.
I was thinking more like a glass topper for a desk. A furniture store might know of suppliers.
I was thinking more like a glass topper for a desk. A furniture store might know of suppliers.
Yes I agree...miss drafting suppliers!
Glass or plexi would be way expensive. And it needs to be at least slightly resilient as well as indifferent to scratches or breakage.
It's a working, semi-disposable surface to keep protecting the while melamine underneath... which would be perfectly good if I wanted to let it accumulate small damage.
Spring for the Vyco. Either do it right the first time, or spend more later to do it over.
If I still did real drafting, or any other hand-graphic work, I would never have even asked the question. You're correct: it's one of those things for which there really is no substitute.
However, I use the table mostly for other things — small fabrication, hand drawing diagrams and such, anything that needs several square feet of spread-it-out room... a nice, smooth, clean cover sheet I don't have to worry about would be nice, but $100 worth of Vyco would make me more cautious and nervous than the existing top. (I could probably fabricate a whole new melamine top, with ironed-on edges and everything, for about $40. So.)
I'll find something. Thanks for all the input.
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But a good suggestion of where to look, when/if.
Used to, though; I did all kinds of complex layouts and things like circuit board design with Old School Toys.
