Hi Barry, I have used one of these surfaces for several years as a "clean bench" and have found it to be perfectly OK. however these bench tops do not like stanley knife blades or a lot of rough usage such as seems to occur in my workshop on the model eng side. Adequate support should be provided on the underside to avoid distortion. Hope this helps. Don MODEL ENGINEERING DISCUSSION LIST. To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, send a blank email to, modeleng-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.