I have a tall stairwell leading up to my attic 'den' and I was thinking about building a table top onto the railings to create a space for some turntables, mixer and laptop. Initially I thought I'd build it from wood, but experiments have made me see that even covering about a third of the stairwell makes it horribly dark. So I thought I could make a table top out of some transparent, heavy duty acrylic or polycarbonate that could be drilled and bolted onto the stair rails and take the weight of the kit (around 25-30kg).
Can anyone recommend a suitable material for loadbearing applications such as this? And any observations about thickness required, solving any sag issues, mounting techniques and so on would be very gratefully received.
Here's a crude schematic:
Photo of the room:
Dimensions would be approx 135cm x 750 cm.
Best Answer
I'd like some more project details, but 10kg isn't really that much of a load, but it all depends on how everything is supported. If the load is cantilevered out 1m from the anchors, then you're going to need much thicker platforms than if you have doubly-supported structures.
If you're into laser cutting things, acrylic is laser cuttable, which makes it easier to work with. Unfortunately, it has a tendency to shatter when it breaks. In this case, you'll want a thick enough piece to keep the material stress below failure. Without knowing how it's supported, it's impossible to say how thick to make this, but I doubt you could go wrong with anything greater than 1/2" or 12mm.
If you plan to cut the panels with a saw, then polycarbonate is probably the best option. Impact/shatter-resistant, it's unlikely to break at all. For this material, you'll want it to be thicker to prevent it from deflecting. It's not about strength, but stiffness. 1/4" or 6mm could be enough, but, again, it depends so much on geometry.