I’m looking at designing a steel table… four legs and a frame on the top fabricated from small HSS to support 1-1/4" of granite. I’ve not done this before, but shouldn’t be difficult.
Does anyone have any suggestions about the lateral load on the 3D frame? like 25% of the vertical load? and a means of attaching the granite table top… use is fancy industrial… either pins or adhesive? any sort of buffer between the frame and the stone?
Dik
Granite surface plates are usually ~>double that thickness except for small ones that will fit in a desk drawer. They are usually flanged on two or four sides, so they can just drop into a simple sturdy frame made of thick angles or square tubes.
Really flat ones are expensive, and get fussed over, e.g. protected from harmful objects like coffee cups.
Be careful of the span to thickness ratio.
Thanks Mike… any idea of usual thickness? and span to thickness ratio?
Dik
Dik:
I would use a small amount of adhesive in the center of the granite piece with four pins in over-sized holes at the corners of the slab.
If weight is an issue with the metal plate support, you can also add angle stiffeners on the underside of the plate. Definitely at the edge.
I think catalogs or webpages from MSC or McMaster-Carr will show you what is usually stocked.
Fomoco had some that were 4’x8’, and maybe 10" thick.
One outfit had one for optics that was 2’x8’, and maybe 18" thick. Trucker tried to unload it at our dock without a dockboard, just took a running start from the far end of the truck. … and sheared off four welded casters. His insurer bought us a new one.