"Solid surface" worktop - made of what?

Ah - eventually found a link to the makers:

Fit one at sweetheats house. She's not had a flood or fire for a couple of weeks so she will be due one soon.

i wanted to, but the GF complained it was too cold for her to lay on.

Get the wife to lay on it first to warm it up a bit :)

In my last job we had Corian bench tops in the physics lab'. It stood up to wear and tear, and heat, very well. ISTR pt's acrylic loaded with marble powder.

Put a blanket over it, and let them both lie on it together.

Owain

As others said ... so here is another link

Sounds rather similar to Corian...

a hard material - it was the use of joinery tools that caught my eye...

Not marble powder but alumina trihydrate, aka martifin, aka aluminium hydroxide, aka Al(OH)3 (see

aka antacid pills

This is all very interesting... I see acrylic based materials like Corian are thermoformed at 150C so that kind of defines its heat resistance.

But there are also polyester resin based versions like Marlan.

Has anyone worked with any variant of this stuff - either installing (does it really machine easily with woodworking tools) or has anyone used a kitchen with it installed?

SWMBO wants "stone" and hates wood. I don't mind stone, but the machining costs pretty much double the price of an already expensive product.

I like wood because it is easy to work with.

So these composites seem like a reasonable solution.

"Hot pan test 10 minutes 180° Celsius no lasting effect"

That looks promising...

Dunno about machine tools but Corian is accepted as one of the better[1] materials for making guitar nuts like this

Nick [1]YMMV. Guitar players fight religious wars over the material that gives the 'true' sound and the search for the Holy Grail of guitar nuts is far from over.

I was thinking about this.

220C - "accidental" almost-never contact with a pot straight out of the oven.

In theory we would use trivets or heatmats (there are 4 people involved - ha!) - but what I do not want is the 220C case warping/destroying it on contact.

I think Corian/acrylic is out. The polyester looks more promising though...

It gave me a trip down memory lane. I once worked with polyester resin doing much the same sort of thing. I wouldn't have used much more than an electric drill or a reciprocating saw on that.

I looked the firm up online. Defunct.

I know the feeling.