Whether it is in the dining room, kitchen, lounge or bedroom, wooden furniture has the uncanny knack of being able to bring out the best in a space by complimenting the room’s other features. Sadly, wooden furniture is notoriously easy to scratch and stain, leading to them quickly accumulating damage and loosing their aesthetic charm. This is the reason why many people, dating back as early as 12th century France and Italy, started using table clothes to hide the blemishes that marred their furniture.
As they say however ‘prevention is better than cure’, and there is no doubt that keeping your furniture in good condition is preferable to simply covering up the damage. Glass table protectors are commonplace, but they too are not ideal as they are often expensive, cumbersome and can break easily. It is due to these flaws that acrylic table protectors have been growing in popularity, as acrylic possesses the same transparency as glass, but lacks its fragility, weight and cost.
Clear Acrylic is very easy to machine, so it does not take much effort to fashion a sheet in any way you require. This versatility makes it incredibly useful, as it gives you the ability to create a table protector that perfectly suits any table in your house, irrelevant of its shape or size.
Method 1 – The Hard Way
Making the protector itself is relatively simple, and can be done with standard household tools:
- To begin with you will need to measure out the surface of the table as accurately as you can.
- Acquire an acrylic sheet the dimensions of which are greater in size than the intended surface in both width and height, by at least several centimetres.
- Make a boarder out of masking tape and draw an outline of the table’s dimensions on to it. Never put any marks on to the acrylic directly.
- Using a hack saw cut around the outline, but leave a couple of millimetres of extra space, as you will need to sand the acrylic to smooth the edges that will be left rough by the hacksaw. If you have access to a jig or band saw then using them would be preferable*.
- Smooth the edges with sandpaper. If possible use 3 sandpapers of varying grades, starting with the most coarse and gradually moving onto one with a very fine abrasion; thereby ensuring that you get the best possible finish.
Method 2 – The Easy Way
Order cut to size acrylic sheets directly from our website. Once again, you will need to measure out the space as precisely as possible, but after that all you need to do is select your preferred sheet, input the dimensions, and it will be delivered to your doorstep within days. We recommend adding polished edges for the most visually pleasing effect.
For more information on Acrylic, Perspex, MDF, Dibond and Polycarbonate please visit our Guide and Blog sections of the website.
Cut Plastic Sheeting are based on the south Coast in Ivybridge, Devon UK. We have a full manufacturing facility which enables us to offer Cut To Size Acrylic as well as Cut To Size MDF. Shop our full range of products, including our Clear Acrylic, coloured acrylic and more recent MDF Wood Sheet ranges.
Our Team are always here to help with any enquiry, please send us an email or for more urgent needs give us a call – Contact Us
