Almost a dozen pockets to hold your various parts, underside covered in velours to prevent scratching the table underneath

The ST80 is a robust 80x45cm aluminum soldering tabletop turning your desktop into a compact workplace for soldering electronics. The handmade tabletop features almost a dozen pockets at the top to hold your various parts. The colored aluminum worksheet ensures that even the smaller parts can be seen while working, and that fallen drops and splashes of solder will not stick to the surface.

The underside of the tabletop is covered with velours to prevent scratching the table underneath. The two lifting handles on the sides allow you to easily pick up the whole tabletop with everything on it, and store it away for later use.

Features

• colored aluminum tabletop, measuring 80x45cm
• almost a dozen (numbered) pockets at the top for parts
• ruler engraved on the left
• ground connector on the right
• velours underside to prevent scratching the table underneath
• when done soldering, the whole tabletop and everything on it can be picked up by the lifting handles and stored away for later use

Usage

The main driver behind creating this tabletop is, of course, a lack of space when I started my little electronics shop. As many of you know from your own experience — I have seen the pictures of your workshops online :) — your desktop gets cluttered very quickly with all sorts of tools, parts and partial projects. Often to such an extend, that it makes working a pain and takes the pleasure out of a hobby that should be great fun!

Furthermore, soldering irons and other hot stuff quickly damage an ordinary desktop, after which it becomes useless for other, more cleanly tasks. A set-on tabletop like this allows you to turn an ordinary desk into a (temporary) soldering/assembly/working table, without introducing a dedicated workbench in an office or home environment.

It turned out that the soldering tabletop that my brother created for me — see the picture at the very bottom — is perfect for my soldering needs. So much so, that we decided to see if we can turn it into a product. The only thing we changed is that we added some color to the aluminum plate, making all these tiny SMD parts better visible against the aluminum backdrop. And because of the large amount of work involved, we replaced the wooden frame for the pockets with a laser-cut frame.

Different sizes and colors

Note that there is a larger tabletop measuring 105x60cm available here.

Please don't hesitate to send me a message if you prefer a different size or color, or if you need a left-handed version. But do note that creating a custom tabletop may take up to four weeks for the build.