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Wave kitchen news
Saturday, 2nd October 2010 20:57 PM
We’ve been making a contemporary style kitchen over the summer, it’s stating to come together well. All the cabinets, doors and drawer fronts are complete. David is currently making the drawers (see dovetailing blog) while I am working on the plinths, cornices and pelmets, which I will finish this week. The main tasks left then are lots of finishing, the worktops (maple and walnut) and the many little bits and pieces that get left to the end. We should be fitting at the beginning of November.
There is bit of a buzz around the workshop now, a month or so back there still seemed to be too much to do with little result. The main feature of the design is a wave effect which flows round the doors and drawer fronts. Now that we have done a trial fitting of the doors we can see that the wave works and will have quite an impact. Jason, who is back working with us, put the first coat of finish on the other day. It really brings out the grain and colour contrast between the ripple maple and the oak.
Applying the oak wave was very time consuming. The doors were first lipped and veneered in maple. The position of the wave was established, the edges were then cut back 2mm in the areas where the oak was to be applied and a 2mm lipping applied. Accuracy was critical here as any discontinuity in the line of the curve from one door to the next would have stuck out like a sore thumb. The 1.4mm oak veneer for the wave was jointed and then cut out using a router and a 12mm mdf template. We had intended to have the templates made for us on a CNC machine, unfortunately we could not get our drawing package (Sketchup) to talk to the CNC machine. Instead I had to create the templates manually using a router and trammel.
Applying the wave required careful planning, the wave piece was offered up and the edge marked lightly with a pencil. Masking tape was applied over the pencil line and the wave piece offered up again and the line of the wave scribed into the tape using a new sharp scalpel. The tape under the wave was then peeled off. This allowed glue to be spread right up to the edge of where the wave was to be layed. After laying the remaining tape was removed thus peeling away any glue squeeze out.
Working in this way means that the grain pattern of the maple and oak is continuous through all the parts of the kitchen, both vertically and horizontally, even round the curved corner posts. For instance the grain in the wall cabinet doors is continued up to the cornice above, this gives the whole thing a greater unity. The layed on 1.4mm veneer gives a slight shadow line on the wall cabinets and has a good feel to the hand.
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Wave kitchen - preliminary assembly
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The oak wave is applied to both sides of the door and also lipped at the edge.
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The corner posts are veneered in maple and the oak wave wraps around them.