Cutting recess in MDF

[Conan1302]

I have been roped into building a craft table for my mother and as I have never done anything like this before, would appreciate some advice please.

The basic construction is a frame with an MDF sheet on top to provide a work surface. As part of it she wants a channel routing round the edge to stop things rolling off the table onto the floor and also wants her cutting mat recessing into the centre of the table.

It is this recessing that is causing me the problems. How would i go about doing this please? The mat is 24" by 12" and approx 4mm thick. (not measured that bit yet)

My current thinking is to use a router and make multiple adjacent passes to make the recess. Does anyone know if this would be practical or if there is a better way of doing it please?

 

[big-all]

you could do it the easy way a sheet of 4mm mdf

with a hole cut out and either laminate onto 2 other layers of 4mm to give you 12mm

or stuck onto 6 or 12mm to give you 10 or 14mm

i would personaly go for a lip on the edge to stop things rolling off