Can you get thin[ner] worktops?

I can see 3m lengths of 20mm thick 'butcher block' but mainly only 100m wide for use as an upstand.

Or this?

Same supplier has 26mm thick in other woods.

veneered 19mm mdf

granbitre.

Make your own from a wood frame tiled?

Yes, I found lots of updstands too.

Ah! That's the first I've seen at 18mm.

Even that might be OK, I've found 27mm elsewhere, 26mm is better (1mm better!).

I wouldn't rush to use wood or wood products as a kitchen worktop. Glassfibre cement board would at least be more durable. Concrete & tile is relatively good, but not 18mm. SS would get you down to around 1mm.

NT

I'm not going to use it as a kitchen worktop! However we have rubberwood worktops in our kitchen and they are excellent and look just about as good as they did new 15 years or more ago.

I'm after thinner material to use for an office/desk worktop.

Ah! That's the first I've seen at 18mm.

Wood makes quite a good worktop... Natural antimicrobial properties, and if you use an oiled finish easy to touch in and repair when required.

Some of the sheds do shelving material of the construction you describe and about the right thickness. You would likely need to glue up several side by side to get the depth required for a desktop.

In that case there's pineboard and a good range of engineered flooring.

NT

But not the best to clean & likes to rot. No option is perfect.

NT

Clean much as any worktop. Its not going to rot unless you like leaving puddles of water on it for extended periods.

If you were that worried, you could use a durable timber like English Oak.

There are tropical hardwoods that will resist rotting pretty well.

Opepe is one of the most rot resistant there is - a pretty orange colour when freshly cut but the very devil to work with. It behaves more like a brittle metal than like a wood. It shatters if you try to nail it.

Oak and faux mahogany survive quite well as kitchen worktops. My lathe is mounted on a retired former kitchen worktop scrounged from a friend.

Granite is another option that is available thinner than default MDF. Synthetics like Corian might be available in thinner grades too.

Pineboard yes, but only pine as far as my searches can see. Flooring would be quite narrow I suspect.

How about looking for a scrap/second-hand office desk that you can strip the top-off and clean up as a top for your new desk?

SteveW

They're very rarely solid wood unless they're very old, and thus will be an unrestorable mess if chipped etc. as they probably will be.

Or someone else does. And there lies one problem. And when water gets under the edge of the sink, as it did, the result was a rotting crater. It never cleaned well compared to formica.

NT

Dearly beloved ex rotted through te English Oal worktop in about 10 years

Replaced with granite... thats thin. about 18mm

Formica on chipboard is almost invitably worse than solid wood in my experience. I guess really expensive stuff like Corian or granite would survive better but wood does pretty well.

Our "Formica" worktop was installed in 1988. So far, so good.

The Formica worktops my father made (albeit back in the days when Evostick was toluine based) still looked brand-new when they were taken out 35 years later.