Disco Lights: Bar top

This is the most important and time consuming part of the bar construction.

The old bar was simply a bit of old kitchen worktop I happened to have in the garage, I had grander ideas for the new one.

The bar is 105cm high - a standard height, with an overhang of 20cm, the minimum to eat comfortably at.

The bar is made of 18mm ply, which in theory should be strong enough to support a 20cm overhang without too much flex, but I wasn't convinced and found it seemed to flex a little too much under load.

By the time I'd built the top I had decided to tile it with small mosaic tiles, but it turns out that these are really expensive and my money-no-object plan was blown out the water. Also in the evening the sun shines directly into the bar and the reflection off the sample mosaic 'gloss' tile is blinding.

Holding the top in place before screwing down.

The width of the bar is 50cm, this seems ample given the space available.

At this point I painted the sides using a bathroom waterproof paint, that I had left over from another DIY job, on top of a white undercoat.

Top screwed in place and sides painted

The 6mm backing board is called "No More Ply" and is very rigid and hard. I used a tile scorer to cut it in a score and snap way. The score needs to be quite deep to get a good break. This was glued and screwed to the 18mm ply and forms a very rigid structure.