Wardrobe doors

[peppino97]

Hello

I would like to ask some questions please,

I would like to have a 3-door sliding wardrobe. Each door will be 95cm wide by about 300cm high (floor to ceiling height), as per the image.

Can you please tell me whether it is possible to have 18mm thick solid american walnut in the wooden areas? I am worried about warping. If not then how wide can each strip be if we can have the door panel made out of wooden strips joined together with every alternate strip rotated 180 degrees ?

Or should I abandon the idea of solid walnut altogether and have melamine faced chipboard?

Thank you for any help
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[Shady]

Peppino - others around here will be more experienced than me, but:

Assuming that the centre bit of your picture will be glass/mirrored, it's a 'modern' design. I think, therefore, that a walnut veneered sheet material (MDF or blockboard) is your best bet. It'll look better than a series of solid strips, and will never warp. I reckon making those doors out of solid wood would be very expensive, and very difficult.

 

[LyNx]

i would opt for a 15 or 18mm backing board with 6mm mirrors and 6mm walnut veneered panels fitted onto the backing board.

Just make sure your slider gear can take the weight

 

[peppino97]

Thanks for your reply shady.

Apologies if it's a dumb question - cant one join together [tongue and groove] walnut planks and then cut the rebate in the middle for the mirror?

Is Melamine faced MDF/Blockboard better than MFChipboard in this case?

Door will be hung from the top using the ferrari Elite system

http://www.mixal.it/eliteeng.html

Finally, what is the price of american walnut per cu.ft. ? I found it at £25/cu.ft. from one supplier.. is that typical?

 

[Colin C]

Hi peppino
I would also go for veneered MDF or blockboard as with the mirrors you dont want any warping, which you might get with solid and you can do it your self .

If you edge the sides with a solid 6-10 strip of solid and veneer it after this and no one will know that it is not solid :-$ :wink:

 

[Scrit]

Another vote for veneered MDF of chipboard here. Apart from being much more stable than solid wood and therefore less likely to warp it also has the advantage of lower cost and the thought of hand planing three doors as large as those dead flat, as you probably don't have a 36in thicknesser (come to thinkl of it I don't know anyone in the trade who's got one either......) gives me the willies.

If you are concerned about warping doors like these can be kept straight using a tension rod system rather like those used in guitar necks, like this:

That's a Planofit system, sold by Hafele (406.99.100), although it should be possible to make your own using kitchen worktop joiners and threaded rod

Scrit

 

[andrewm]

Door will be hung from the top using the ferrari Elite system

http://www.mixal.it/eliteeng.html

Looks like that might be a good system. Is there a distributor in this country?

<rant>
What a useless website. No practical information, no catalogue to download not even a list of all their products - you have to click on something to even find out what it is.

But hey, its got flash and fancy animations and probably sound too if I had speakers connected to my PC so that's alright then. Bet they paid a pretty penny for it too.
</rant>

Andrew

 

[peppino97]

Yes you're right it's pretty much a useless website,, however I have the pdf mounting details if you want I can email them to you (2 pages). Seems to be a very sturdy system. Can support 70kg per door. (16mm chipboard weighs around 15kg/square metre).

Re. others: Thanks for your views. I have abandoned the solid walnut idea...

My carpenter is asking GBP 3,150 for this set of wardrobe, bed frame, bedside tables and chest of drawers in walnut fronts, incl. installation and finish with lacquer spray. Is this a reasonable price?

Set shown here:
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b159/3142/lens/bedroom11.jpg

 

[Scrit]

From memory Ferrari used to have a distributor somewhere over near/in Hull, but they also sell some of their range through Hafele, although most of Hafele's sliding door systems are made by Hawa. Another place to look is Hettich (another problematic web site ), and there's also Stanley to consider. Anyone know if Henderson make sliding gear for this sort of application? Jason B perhaps?

The price quoted seems more than reasonable to me, especially as the units are 3 metres high - one question, though, can you get a 3 metre door or wardrobe side panel through the house and up the stairs of the house? Might be worth checking.

Scrit

 

[peppino97]

Yes PC Henderson supply a very good system too - the Husky 50 and 100 (kg).

For agents of Ferrari check www.ferrarisrl.it

The house is a 1 floor apartment .. no stairs to go up ! Thanks for the tips. Now I just hope that the american walnut veneer matches the solid walnut of the other pieces of furniture. I'll tell the carpenter to avoid sapwood when choosing as often it is very light yellow...

 

[Scrit]

I'll tell the carpenter to avoid sapwood when choosing as often it is very light yellow...

Sorry to disagree again, but according to the John Boddy rep. the majority of American black walnut imported into the UK has been steamed to even out the colour differences between sapwood and heartwood, so it may be all but impossible to tell without a Lupe which bit is softwood. He also told me that a number of the European walnut suppliers are following suit these days.

Scrit

 

[orangetlh]

Dont think our suppliers do that! Ordered over 50 cube of american black from 3 different suppliers and wastage was over 100% from all of them. Main problem was the majority of it was ex1" and they seem to use all the rubbish for that.

 

[tim]

My carpenter is asking GBP 3,150 for this set of wardrobe, bed frame, bedside tables and chest of drawers in walnut fronts, incl. installation and finish with lacquer spray. Is this a reasonable price?

Extremely - in fact I'm wondering how he makes a living.

Cheers

Tim

 

[Steve Maskery]

Can you send me your carpenter's phone number? If I get an order like this, I'll gladly buy it off him for that price. As Tim says, how on earth does he make a profit?

That price would not be over the top just for the wardrobe, depending on what is fitted inside it.

Scrit - interesting idea of the tensioning system, I must remember that.

Cheers
Steve

 

[peppino97]

I'm in Malta... Here you can get a solid (not a hint of chipboard) pine bedroom set (in a 'traditional' design with a lot of mouldings, routed edges etc. ) for just around the same price.

 

[tim]

I'm in Malta... Here you can get a solid (not a hint of chipboard) pine bedroom set (in a 'traditional' design with a lot of mouldings, routed edges etc. ) for just around the same price.

So how were we supposed to comment as to whether its a fair price? :roll: :roll:

 

[Scrit]

So how were we supposed to comment as to whether its a fair price? :roll: :roll:

You mean you don't export? :shock: So much for us as a trading nation :wink:

Scrit

 

[engineer one]

yes but tim was hoping to be exported himself :lol: :lol: :lol:

paul :wink:

 

[peppino97]

If anything it should have been more expensive as we have to import everything here. With no major suppliers items are more expensive.

Thanks for your comments, everyone.