I don't know about the US but in Canada Home Depot stocks 1" butcher block countertops.

I personally would avoid particleboard countertops (like the IKEA veneer countertops) in a van. For one I find they are much harder to work with if you want to rip them for instance but also I would be worried with how they hold over time vs temperature/humidity changes, and also how they will stay in place in case of accident. I attached our countertops with thick steel brackets and #14 screws. Plus I assume the particleboard countertops would be heavier than butcher block.

For our van I bough a 39x74 island countertop from with I made our galley countertop, table, the top of our bench/battery box, and I have leftovers for a drop down extension that I may never install and cutting boards.

 

The idea of a piece of butcher block flying into the cab area during a crash scares me. I wouldn't consider it unless I had some way of making sure it was absolutely secure and then maybe adding some safety straps. A few screws/rivnuts into sheet metal holding a 1" 40? lb slab might not be safe.

 

You're absolutely right. My countertop weights approx. 16 kg. I feel it is adequately secured; the typical corner brackets used to attach a countertop in residential construction would definitely not be adequate. This is where at least solid wood has an advantage because it holds fasteners much better than particleboard. Actually depending on species butcherblock is not on the heavy end of the scale, it is less dense than particleboard or plywood.
I thought of hollowing out the bottom to remove some weight (and improve the sound? It works on guitars ) but did not get around to it yet.

 

Wife made a resin counter top on a piece of 3/4" plywood.

 

I used ¾" ply too, but it looks like an 1 ½" because I put a second layer on the bottom that was mostly cut out like a collar. Our temporary counter was plywood with polyurethane on it and that was too much work for upkeep (my husband is not good at cleaning up water spots and shakes his hands dry). I wanted copper countertops but at the time the sheet copper would have been $400 and I baulked at that so I painted them to look like distressed copper and then epoxy coated it. Much easier to look after.

We still did major work securing it. We epoxied threaded inserts into it and used grade 8 bolts into house framing brackets. They are fixed to the cabinets and also the main pillars in the van.

 

It's screwed down to the cabinet frames. If it is flying around during a crash, we have WAY more things to worry about. A counter top in the head would be least of our worries.

 

My counter is 1/2” ply with a 1” lip to make it look like it's 1.5”, so effectively it is “hollowed out”. Life got a lot easier when I put laminate on top. Taking care of wood counter is too much work.

 

Yes, it is some work; "too much" is up to each of us to decide .
It really depends on what you're after. We did not want the full "natural wood" look in our van because we felt it was overwhelming in this small a space but we still wanted some natural wood, so we chose the ceiling, countertops, table and bed rails. The ceiling and bed rails have a polyurethane finish but for the rest 5 minutes every few months is how long it takes me to put some "butter" (mixture of mineral oil and beeswax) on the countertop and table and rub it in, primarily to prevent water from seeping in.

 

I got 1" acacia from home depot for my countertops. I wanted wood. I didn't care how much work it took. But it's not taken any work at all, except i cut on a cutting board because I don't want cut marks in the wood. I'd do the same with any countertop.

(it's stained with the recommended finish to be black/brown)

 

We will probably go this way. Still hesitating with a bamboo one. We'll see...

 

Look also at ¾” bamboo plywood, sometimes called “Plyboo”.
It’s hard and can take a beating, looks beautiful and doesn’t need to be laminated. We have bamboo cutting boards that are 20 yrs old and look new.

 

Look also at ¾” bamboo plywood, sometimes called “Plyboo”.
It’s hard and can take a beating, looks beautiful and doesn’t need to be laminated. We have bamboo cutting boards that are 20 yrs old and look new.

we used bamboo in our remote cabin. I did seal it with a hybrid oil/water based clear;

 

I used 1 1/4" teak from Home Depot (online order).
Definitely very dense, but looks amazing and takes no work. Been using it full time for 2 years and haven't done any upkeep. Still looks almost new. I will want to add some hardwax oil around the sink pretty soon though.

https://www.promasterforum.com/threads/aarons-build-and-questions-thread.91809/post-746104

Some almost finished photos here:

https://www.promasterforum.com/threads/aarons-build-and-questions-thread.91809/post-767298

 

Looks fantastic!
Did you leave some slack in your brackets for expansion, especially across the grain?

 

Wow, thank you so much for all the answers. I'll let you know what we decide and if I have more questions, I'll ask there. It's great to be able to benefit from your experience.

 

Update.
We went with the Acacia one. There probably is the recommendations for the finish: mineral oil or else, but if you have suggestions I am interested. Also, how do you attach it to the cabinets? Above the drawers it looks complicated. We still have to make one with the sink and one we will lift up ot have access to our chest fridge. So still a lot of work.

 

Remember it's heavy!
I attached ours with 8 brackets sold for this, attached to the countertop and cabinet sides with #12 screws. Remember to allow for seasonal shrinkage and expansion.

 

And as for finish it really is preference. We use a mix of mineral oil and beeswax because we wanted to keep the raw wood look and did not mind occasionally treating it. We like it but others prefer a polyurethane finish or even epoxy.

 

i used this, only the espresso color to match my counter.

 

Thanks. I knew it but my husband started to watch videos on youtube and all were gluing so he said we gonna glue and I answered let me check with my prefered forum, lol. No but that makes sense.

 

To me that's one of the problems of the social media culture - influencers, not experts, are creating content 🤔.
Just check any countertop manufacturer instructions.