I need a large ironing board. I have looked on line for one but they seem to be rather expensive. Also saw many plans for making one, but I have absolutely no talent with saws and such and directions call for a furring and I have no idea what that is. I was thinking of buying a large piece of plywood that I could cover and just set on top of my cutting table when I need it, rather than trying to fit one to my existing ironing board. Has anyone tried this?

I have put a piece of 3/4 inch plywood on top of a desk and put wheels under it to make it the right height. I padded it with warm and natural (used two layers), insulbrite and the top is the quilted silver iron fabric, but I believe you can use muslin as well. I stapled each layer and it works wonderful!

This is one of my favorite blogs that I read and she has a nice ironing board that she did. http://teachinggoodthings.com/blog/a...ironing-board/ Maybe not exactly what you are looking for but I would love one of these myself. :)

This is what we did and we are not to handy either! My husband borrowed a hand saw from a friend, he went to the lumber yard and asked for a sheet of construction grade 1/2 inch plywood to be cut in half and then in half again (now we have 1/4th pieces)and an 8 foot piece of 1x2 board.
Once he got it home I drew a semi-circle on the corners and he roughly tried to round them off - more like just cut the corners off and we cut up the 1x2 into 10 pieces. I laid my oldest ironning board on the plywood and traced it with a sharpie. I took Liquid Nail and placed 5 of the 1x2 pieces around the outline of the ironning board. two on either side of the narrow end, then two around the middle part and one across the bottom. I let the Liquid Nails set over night. Then I laid the one two pieces of Warm and Natural batting, and used the heavy duty stapler we have to secure it, then I took a fabric that I had been given that I knew I was unlikely to use for quilting (purple and white gingham check)I stapled it down too. Then I took it off and placed the board on top of the upright ironning board - Voile a big board place to iron. Cost about $10.00 for the wood. My DH went to an independent lumber yard not a big box one. If I had of gone I might have asked for them to round the ends off as they have all those big saws etc. Good luck! I really like mine now that it is made and have extras for a friend when she brings her board over to be done.
Janet

You should be able to get a 2 x 4 piece of plywood from Lowe's. Furring comes in strips and would probably be attached to the underside of the plywood to keep it from sliding/moving around while in use.

Also, there was a thread regarding the use of the silver fabric on ironing boards (if i recall correctly, it was not recommended). I have an old wooden one that was covered with a cotton batting and a heavyweight unbleached muslin.

[quote=carslo]This is what we did and we are not to handy either!


This sounds almost like something I could handle. Guess I'll have to buy a saw.

this is what i did , i went to the lumber company and they have boards that are used for shelfing , i got one of them the size i wanted , coved it with padding and coth for the top. i did not mount mine on an old ironing board because i do not have the room to set one up in my room . so now when im not useing it i can store it in a small thin space, when i want to use it i put it on a tabe i have in my room. i did no cutting of the wood what so ever.

For quilting you don't want to use a soft ironing pad. It's best if it is very firm. I put one layer of cotton batting and then one layer of duck cloth (canvas) on my small ironing board that I use mostly for pressing blocks and for the big board I put one layer of cotton batting and one layer of cotton fabric. If the fabric sinks at all into the pad it will distort the fabric a lot more then you may think. As posted earlier be sure the ironing board you use for the big board has four legs not the T legs, it will have to support more weight and a wimpy ironing board won't hold up for long.

I found these pictures very helpful when we made ours.
http://community.webshots.com/album/180862212jmSjuv

This is an awesome idea. I think this would be a little easier to get set up rather than lifting the board onto the cutting area. That could be a little heavy to lift up.