I've tried a lot of different materials for mouse mats over the years - various metals, plastics, fabrics, wood, and other more exotic materials. Of all of them, PTFE (Teflon) is the only one I didn't feel was lacking in some way. I'm posting this here now because I happened to be looking at mouse mats recently, and didn't see any PTFE ones at all. A bit more searching and I see that they are commercially available, but rare, despite PTFE seeming to be an obvious choice, and working well in my experience.
Originally I tried a solid PTFE sheet, which worked poorly because my mouse didn't track well on it (I suppose a featureless white surface isn't ideal), and despite being famously non-stick, it eventually attracts a thin layer of grime, making it not low-friction at all.
What worked better was glass fibre coated with PTFE. This stuff is sold for various purposes, such as oven liner. The glass fibres give the surface a fine texture. It doesn't suffer from the same problem with dirt as solid PTFE; presumably dirt is pushed into the little dents in the surface, leaving the low-friction PTFE exposed above. These sheets can't be used on their own though, as they are too flexible and slippery, and won't stay still on a desk. So I laminated some with other materials.
Here's a photo of pieces of the raw materials:
The bottom layer is cork/rubber, which sticks quite well to a desk. Plain cork would be fine too, I just happened to have a sheet of mixed cork/rubber handy.
In the middle is carbon fibre to add stiffness. Because I used UD fabric (fibres running in only one direction), I had to use two layers at 90° to each other. I only used UD because it's what I had to hand; if I had used woven fabric then a single layer would have been sufficient.
The glass/PTFE sheet is on the top. By its nature it's hard to get it to stick to the other layers, but if the surface is roughened up enough with sand-paper then epoxy will stick to it well enough.
Here's a photo of the completed mouse mat. It's around 5 years old now, so it's looking quite worn. Despite the glass fibres being exposed in a few places, it's still a slick surface:
And here's a photo from the side, showing the layers glued together, with no delamination even after years of use:
And that's it. A bit tricky to get everything stuck together, but required no special tools to make, and it was cheap and has worked very well.
Originally I tried a solid PTFE sheet, which worked poorly because my mouse didn't track well on it (I suppose a featureless white surface isn't ideal), and despite being famously non-stick, it eventually attracts a thin layer of grime, making it not low-friction at all.
What worked better was glass fibre coated with PTFE. This stuff is sold for various purposes, such as oven liner. The glass fibres give the surface a fine texture. It doesn't suffer from the same problem with dirt as solid PTFE; presumably dirt is pushed into the little dents in the surface, leaving the low-friction PTFE exposed above. These sheets can't be used on their own though, as they are too flexible and slippery, and won't stay still on a desk. So I laminated some with other materials.
Here's a photo of pieces of the raw materials:
The bottom layer is cork/rubber, which sticks quite well to a desk. Plain cork would be fine too, I just happened to have a sheet of mixed cork/rubber handy.
In the middle is carbon fibre to add stiffness. Because I used UD fabric (fibres running in only one direction), I had to use two layers at 90° to each other. I only used UD because it's what I had to hand; if I had used woven fabric then a single layer would have been sufficient.
The glass/PTFE sheet is on the top. By its nature it's hard to get it to stick to the other layers, but if the surface is roughened up enough with sand-paper then epoxy will stick to it well enough.
Here's a photo of the completed mouse mat. It's around 5 years old now, so it's looking quite worn. Despite the glass fibres being exposed in a few places, it's still a slick surface:
And here's a photo from the side, showing the layers glued together, with no delamination even after years of use:
And that's it. A bit tricky to get everything stuck together, but required no special tools to make, and it was cheap and has worked very well.
good times.