Is this doomed to fail?
A.J. Hamler
My wife's sister wants me to laminate the top of a solid-pine table. This table is approximately 3-1/2 feet by six feet, and is glued up of solid 2-by material. (2x6's, if I remember correctly from the last time I saw it.) Also, it's important to note that this table is located at her beach house at Cape Hatteras where the humidity swings from about nothing in the winter to about a thousand percent in the summer.
I've opined that the amount of wood movement that table will experience -- but the plastic laminate won't -- will mean this project will fail in one way or another. The way I figure, one of four things will happen:
1) The laminate will retard the seasonal wood expansion/contraction on the side it's glued and cause the table to cup severely lengthwise.
2) The laminate won't retard the seasonal expansion/contraction, and cause the table to split when it shrinks.
3) The laminate won't retard the seasonal expansion/contraction, but instead of splitting, the wood will pull back from the laminate edge in the winter, and stick out from the laminate edge in the summer.
4) A combination of any of the above.
Also, it seems to me that if the table doesn't split, the constant shrinking and expanding would eventually cause the laminate glue bond to fail, and the laminate will come loose.
I've explained all of these possibilities, but her sister is insistent.
Any thoughts?
A.J.
