# Making kitchen worktops - feasible or flawed?



## Yetty (28 Aug 2007)

Ready made solid wood kitchen worktops are generally manufactured using jointed short staves. Presumably these are nice and stable. However I don’t think the beauty of the wood is nearly as easily appreciated. 

Any opinion or experiences with making kitchen worktops using full length pieces? 

e.g. buy five planks of kiln dried timber from merchant, square, plane, acclimatise, resulting in say pieces each 3 metre length, 100mm wide, 35mm thick. Cut finger joints using router table and finger cutter bit, glue and cramp, sanded using random orbital handheld. Does this sound feasible or flawed?


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## MooreToolsPlease (28 Aug 2007)

sounds reasonably feasible to me.
Rather than 3 metres though I would glue them up in the approximate lengths needed.
one advantage you will have is that you can make the edges square rather than that small round over.
This will help in any corners you have to negotiate. 
You can use a straight butt joint rather than a shallow masons mitre


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## woodworm (28 Aug 2007)

We often make worktops from iroko.

Same as what MTP said, make the worktop blanks in the lengths you need and joining board edges using butt joints with biscuits and waterproof glue. Don't route a biscuit groove where the sink cut out will be, if using an under mounted or belfast sink.

Also no need to have even width boards to make up the top, just move them around so they look right and the figure looks nice across them. Reverse the ring direction an the ends of adjacent boards, as you would on a table top, if you can. 

A belt sander first may be easier to get it smooth then the orbital.

Cut out for the sink (save off cut to make a chopping board) route in drainage grooves, job done!


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## jasonB (29 Aug 2007)

I've done them but its a lot of work if there are several worktops needed for a job and the average DIY machines are not ideal for straightening 3m plus lengths of 50x150 oak. 

Biscuit joints are easier for the home workshop as balancing long heavy lengths of timber on a router table is not easy to keep the wood against the table. And sanding takes a while igf you don't have a drum sander.

Last job where I needed long full width boards I had them made up, 4 boards wide with a 80mm downstand.

Jason


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## Ratter (29 Aug 2007)

I was in the same position and ordered one of these:-

http://www.britishhardwoods.co.uk/worktops/types_prices.html

They said they could make me a 3.2m worktop with no lateral joins. Their wood IMHO is high quality, but you might get cheaper elsewhere.

Maybe I was a bit of a coward but I didn't feel I had the expertise or space/equipment to make my own, good luck with your endeavours


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## cerbie (30 Aug 2007)

I might be just the bloke (mug?) you are looking for .....?

went over to the scirie friday to pick up the wood for my own kitchen worktop - oak - air dried.

Jean Jacques, owner of the scirie, kindly lowered it onto the top of the trailer ............. with a fork lift ............... 
- 4 pieces 4.5M and 4 pieces 3.5M and all roughly 500mm wide.
I had been expecting 2M lengths ripped in 200mm widths ... oh well .... ( and _she_ was not impressed with having to help move it off the trailer!) 

never made a worktop before, so I had planned to cut to 100mm width and biscuit at 150mm centres and use staggered joints along length, I might, however, go with your suggestion and just cut to length required.

SO ..... if anyone is interested I will return to this noble forum with a description of the result ......... oh, and found out today that the crappy T/S has now got a run out on the fence ... joy


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## tnimble (30 Aug 2007)

Using boards as long as you can handle on your tools is fine. End grain to end grain joints in a worktop are the most weak points. If you can avoid them do avoid them.

The reason of making the worktops out of many short pieces is to reduce cost. The narrow and short pieces are more cheap then full sized boards and less cutoffs to work around bad pieces of wood. This was told to me by a colleague who have worked several years for one of the biggest manufacturers of mass produced worktops.


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