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So yesterday I went to my local hobby store interested in buying a healing cutting mat but the size I wanted was damn near $40.00, so I told the hobby store to STFU and walked across the street to the ACE Hardware across the street and grabbed all the materials I would need to make my own Slip-Free Work Surface for my desk.

All in all the total materials cost was around $7.00.

Materials Needed:
One - 24" x 48" piece of 1/32' thick MDF board cut down into two 18" x 24" pieces
one roll of shelf grip liner cut into seven 1 1/4" x 18" strips
PVA glue
PVA dedicated paint brush


Materials gathered.


The desk I am trying to protect.


Measuring the MDF board to make sure it fits on the table.


Cutting Grip Liner down into 1 1/4" x 18" strips.


All the grip liner strips cut down to size.


Applying PVA glue to the backside of the MDF board.


3 strips glued down.


All 7 strips glued down.


PVA glue all dry and now I have a slip-free workspace to build and work on my minis.

Take that local over priced hobby store! So yeah, if you dont want to spend tons of money on the cutting mats this is a quick and cheap alternative. All in all it took about an hour to do all the work. Might have been shorter but Futurama was on. Let me know what you guys think. I may update this later with some other accessories I may build for it.

If you're going to use this as a cutting surface you should really think about some sort of coating or seal. Dust from cutting or sanding MDF is not something you want in your lungs!

Maybe a coating of watered down PVA would do the trick - it would also be easy to touch up any damage as time went by...

Simon

Good point, I'll look into some sort of sealant. But at the same time I have a small hand vac next to me for most of my work anyway. Thanks for the tip BloodQuest.

No, you don't want MDF dust in your lungs, but it's not like you're going to be snorting lines of the stuff. What little bit you manage to break away from the board while cutting, won't get airborne because it's too heavy. And even if it did, it wouldn't be enough to harm you. The cheese burger you eat for lunch will kill you LONG before any trace amount of formaldehyde would even come close to making you sick.

I'm with beezley. If you were cutting or sanding MDF all day in an enclosed environment, you might have something to worry about. Just using MDF for a backstop for your Exacto knife isn't going to generate enough dust to worry about.

The Green Git wrote:I'm with beezley. If you were cutting or sanding MDF all day in an enclosed environment, you might have something to worry about. Just using MDF for a backstop for your Exacto knife isn't going to generate enough dust to worry about.

I'm with you there as well, but, if you wanted a quick seal, head to Wal-Mart (or the like) and just get a rattlecan of spray varnish. Quick. Easy. Done. I myslef would probably just leave it bare wood, but, to each his own...

Ended up using the spray sealant. Thanks for looking out for my health guys.