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Most of the ceramic studios I know use particle boards as working surfaces for handbuilding. Personally, I find them heavy and they don’t withstand cleaning properly. Over time corners chip and the surface warps. I got from Canus Plastics (a local manufacturer of anything plastic) some free Plexiglas pieces (most likely not the accurate term for it, I don’t know my plastics as well as they do) that I use as boards. They have a bin at the entrance of the store where they give away loose ends and other odd ends, so this allows artists to recycle theses products. With the right thickness, they don’t warp under the weight of the pieces when moving them around and they clean easily.
Here is one of my boards:
Plexiglass board.
I cut some newspaper (2 pages-thick) using the sides of the board so it fits its size prior to working on my pieces so that the clay won’t stick to the board.
Newspaper on board (2 pages-thick).
I often place the board on a banding wheel to work on the piece. Once I am done with the piece, I can put it on my shelf to dry covered with a plastic bag. Right now I have a metallic shelving space to put my work to dry and it is warped, so I am glad my Plexiglas stays flat. When shelving space has been too little I have stacked my boards on top of each other using some stilts just like for kiln shelves.
Cut out pieces on the board.
