Making a light table top

[Russell]

We have a camping table, 1000x600, with a, probably, melamine faced chipboard top 14mm thick.  This weighs 6kg on its own (car camping you understand!).

I would like to make a lighter one.  What materials, what construction and final weight should be possible?

Sort of thinking - thin ply, hollow construction with pads for the fittings and hardwood lipping.  Maybe 4kgs???

TIA

R

[mrcharly-YHT]

Aluminium sheet backed with either wood or square section aluminium tube for stiffness.

Cue someone arguing that Ti or CF would be better . . .

[tom_e]

Maybe go for some kind of rigid foam inside the ply rather than hollow?  Stronger, particularly against shear in the unreinforced areas, and it'll maybe feel higher quality too cause you won't be able to make it vibrate like a cheap musical instrument?

[graculus]

Correx sheeting (what they make 'House for sale' signs from; people making fairings for HPVs sometimes use it)?

[Kim]

I made one out of thinnish ply ages ago.  I've no idea what it weighs, but it does the job.  Main concern was being more durable than the rotten chipboard effort I rescued the legs from.

[Jurek]

Aerolam.
Fiendishly strong.
Unfeasibly light.
You'd need to moolish something to deal with 'open' edges.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find a material with a better strength-to-weight ratio for the sort of application you're thinking about.
Really, there's piece of aerolam sitting on the shelf behind me. It can see the screen and it's sniggering to itself.
Surface mount fittings for screw-in legs using epoxy glue.

[Wobbly John]

*Waves sheet of CF Nomex honeycomb at Jurek's post & sticks tongue out* 

(I also have a lump of aluninium Aerolam on the shelf in the workshop) 

[Jurek]

 
Spendy!
 

[loadsabikes]

*Waves sheet of CF Nomex honeycomb at Jurek's post & sticks tongue out* 

(I also have a lump of aluninium Aerolam on the shelf in the workshop) 
[/quote

That's one hitech table!!

[Valiant]

What's wrong with a piece of 6mm polycarb? It's not like you'll be putting an awful lot of weight on the table so it'd cope fine.