Thanks William. Much appreciated. I will certainly heed your warnings.
I did a full-sized mockup at 30″ width and it was too narrow so I really need to go to 36″. As a DIYer I can’t imagine I’d get a decent seam with 30″ stock so I’ll go with the 1/4″ and used 1″ or 5/4″ plywood as a substrate and be sure to keep hot things off of it.
I’m all ears if you have any other suggestions/words of caution.