Having designed and made bespoke cabinetry for the over thirty years, we are often asked by clients if it is possible for us to design curved or rounded corners within our cabinetry. Rounded corners automatically soften the overall look of a project, as the eye can move from one area to another with uninterrupted ease. Curves are more in keeping with the natural and organic feel of the wood and they remove the sometimes awkward and harsh edges which sharp corners can often present.
Curves, although simple and eye pleasing in form, can be very time consuming and technically difficult to achieve in practice, especially on issues of how we carry plinth lines smoothly around from one face to the next!
The whole process takes a lot of time and work. Previously, many components had to be made just to form one corner. We made turnings which were then cut into quadrants. Straight horizontal rails also had to be cut and then fitted to each of the quadrants, before mounting them against the curved corner of the cabinetry (as can be seen from the photograph above).
We recently came up with a solution, although still time consuming, enabled the plinth to be made in one, continuous, flowing section. Formers were made to enable us to shape the wood to fit exactly around the curved corner of the cabinetry.
Several layers of solid wood laminate were cut and then coated with adhesive and laid together. Before the glue started to ‘go off’ or set, the laminate layers were wrapped around the formers and clamped tightly. The newly shaped plinth was left to set before being shaped and cleaned up.
This new and exciting method has revolutionised, replaced and simplified our old process.
After being sanded, polished and lacquered in the same finish as the cabinetry, the finished plinth was then fixed to the front rail of the cabinet. The rest of this kitchen, showing more examples of our curved corners will be featured in a future blog post.
Comments