fixing a sheet of tin to mdf

[damson]

hello all

any thoughts/advice much appreciated

I want to build a kitchen table using a sheet of mdf (cut into a circle) with a pedestal support but cover the top (sheet of mdf) with a sheet of tin or pieces of tin. Do I glue? the sheet of tin (which metal would be best?) to the mdf - and what kind of nails do I use to hammer in the edges. I intend to buff and then laquer the whole table so there are no nasty sharp edges.

Has anyone any tips or thoughts how best to go about this?

thanks very much in advance

 

[Jasonb]

I've used both contact adhesive and epoxy to stick stainless steel to board in the past with no problem.

Stainless would be your best metal with no fixings just adhesive. Were you thinking of turning the metal down to cover the edges of the table? this will not be easy with any metal as it will tend to work harden and need annealing several times if you are to avoid kinks and splits.

Jason

 

[damson]

hi Jasonb

many thanks for your reply

Can you explain a bit more what you mean by

with any metal as it will tend to work harden and need annealing several times if you are to avoid kinks and splits.

What's the best way to do this annealing? I'd hoped to make the table a round one so there would be plenty of folding over and cutting to do ....

thanks again ...

 

[breezer]

you heat it up to aneal it, google has lots of infp

 

[Jasonb]

If you want to bend the metal over the curved edge you will need to beat it with a hammer (hide or nylon) a little bit at a time. The bending/hammering process hardens the metal, to get rid of this hardness it needs heating upto a dull red and then allowing to cool naturally - not quenched

Personally I'd get my local stainless fabricators to weld a downstand onto a disc of S.Steel and have them grind and dress the weld to give an invisible joint. They can also brush or polish to your requirements.

Jason

 

[Hitachimad]

A circle is certainly harder to do than a square or rectangle.

It would be quite hard to get it to look nice if it was hammered over, youd end up with ridges and indents and probably not all that even. You could have a disc cut and a band tig welded to it like jason suggested, but youd have to stress that it needed to be flat. Welding a band on a flat circle of thin stainless sheet will cause the disc to dish upwards unless they are carefull. Wont be that cheap either.

 

[Trazor]

Welding a band on a flat circle of thin stainless sheet will cause the disc to dish upwards unless they are carefull. Wont be that cheap either.

Its not possible to weld a strip around a table sized disc of stainless steel without considerable distortion.
Such a flange would either be formed in a press tool (very expensive tooling), or formed by spinning over a former.

Unless you are very experienced in sheetmetal techniques, you will end up with a mess.
My advice, is to find a furniture supplier who could source the item you are after.

And a laquered surface will not last 5 minutes in a kitchen.

 

[Hitachimad]

Very carefull- minimal heat input, doing minimal weld then a bit elsewhere. Would keep it to a minimum.


Would take a month of sundays to get round it

 

[gcol]

My advice, is to find a furniture supplier who could source the item you are after.

Like this http://www.indisplay.co.uk/product.php?cl1=1&pr=312

 

[damson]

Thanks guys - all very helpful indeed!