🔝 Server Top

I used a piece of plywood to cover the void of the server rack. Its purpose is to enable me to place things atop it. I must remind myself of this singular purpose to cope with its ugliness.

The stain looked great, then I completely ruined the look by encasing it in a thick layer of polyurethane plastic. Now it has a wet-looking orange glow to it, and probably sheds a trillion microplastic particles into the air each day. I am a little ashamed of the decision, but life goes on and the finish is totally inconsequential to the tabletop’s stated purpose.

I picked out a nice-looking piece at Home Depot, and had someone cut it to size for me. Then I sanded the edges to give them each a small radius, sanded the surface, vacuumed and wiped it totally clean for staining. But then I found some leftover PU and some painting pyramids and thought “why not”? I placed the plywood on top of the pyramids and slapped on several layers of way-too-thick oil-based PU with a PU foam brush. It was old and partially cured PU, impossible to apply in thin coats and hard to handle, but it did not stop me and probably should have.

I am not totally unhappy with result but I could have done better. The look is competitive with the default raw, dull yellow surface finish at least. 👍

✅ Done.