Creating A Curved Worktop

For our own kitchen we had decided we wanted a curved unit and worktop where you enter the kitchen. This would make the flow much better as you enter the room (and much less likely to stub your toe!).

To do so creates a bit of work though. I had to first make the curved unit which involved lots of curved ply.  This then gave me the radius length for the worktop.

Only a perfect curve would do for this, anything less would stand out like a sore thumb. So routing a template was the only way really, no way could this be cut by hand. I used the bars on my router and a block of wood to create a simple circle jig. And routed the quarter turn using a straight cutter. I took the extraction off for this photo but always have it on when routing MDF.

The Run of worktop to be routed

I then used the template to draw the curve and cut using a jigsaw as close as I could to make routing easier.

The jig was fitted to the underside of the worktop as the copy bit I had for the router has the bearing on the bottom. I clamped this to the worktop, I made the jig big enough so that the clamps were well out of the way.

Even with dust extraction on this is still a dusty job, but far better than without! Routing the actual curve didn't take long once set up! A sharp bit is essential for cutting the oak without burning it.

I then sanded the curve working up through the grits and routed a slight chamfer on the edge, this way it still looks crisp but isn't sharp. 

I'm really pleased with this curve. The first thing anyone does as they walk in is to rub their hand along it so I'm glad I took the time to get it perfect!

Making Single Glazed Windows Into Double

I'll be honest - this wasn't a job I was looking forward to!
The customer wanted the 5 windows on the exposed face of his property to be changed from single glazed to double. As the windows were hardwood, of good quality and thick enough, we decided that it would be best to increase the size of the rebate (or rabbet for the Americans) where the glass sits so it could take the thicker units.

Working on the wrong side of the heater!

 This is a bit of a dirty job really every step involves dirt and dust! First we had to remove the old glass from the windows, this was done with a combination of chisels, knifes, the multimaster and a hammer! Cleaning up any broken glass before moving on to the next step.

Luckily I had Tim with me to help or it would have seemed a bit of a daunting job on my own as you couldn't rust it for fear of damaging the frames.

Removing all the old putty

Once we'd removed all the glass and cleaned up the old putty from the edges I could set about making the rebate deeper. My new little Bosch router (bought mainly for this job) was ideal as it has such a small base it could get round all the edges without hitting the walls. It was tricky to find a rebate cutter for the router with the right sized bearing to give us the correct width of cut, the ones in the set were either too big or too small but luckily I had a bearing from an old router bit set that was just the right size (shows you should throw nothing out!).

My new little router was ideal for this job - still had to have a steady handso as not to wobble

 Once I routed round each window, three of them having 16 panes of glass (this was a dusty job - I had sawdust everywhere - and I mean everywhere!) it was just a matter of tidying up the corners with a sharp chisel. I had to be careful when routing as a lot of the time the router was just resting on the thin mullion or transom and a wobble would have been really noticeable.

Cleaning up the waste in the corners

I then made some templates for the new glass and boarded up the windows.

A dirty job, but one that will make the house feel a lot warmer on this exposed site when the new glass is fitted.

A Unit for our Kitchen

This is a little job I did over the Christmas break but only fitted on Thursday night due to how long the old paint I used took to dry!

Our kitchen is small and very short on space, so my idea was to build a cheap lattice/shelf unit type thing to house Kilner jars to hold all of our store cupboard ingredients (oats, rice, pasta, etc).

For cost I made it out of one sheet of MDF (£10 from Magnet - really cheap and they gave me a free t-shirt!(I also walked out with his pen by accident an unintentional bonus!)) and some paints I already had (although I wish I brought some new gloss as it wouldn't dry!).

It's really simple construction, I trench cut with my little 1/4" router where the shelves crossed into the sides and then it's held together using a good glue and a few pins. Trench cutting using the guide clamp I've got is so easy - but I think the last time I used it was when I converted a ambulance into a camper van (but more of that another time). The back is just rebated into the unit and the two end panels were cut to fit over the skirting. It glued and clamped together really easily.

I sealed it before painting (anyone who uses MDF knows this is essential), I'm sure the finish would have been better if it had dried faster (less dust to sit on it) or if I had used a spray gun instead of a brush (I think I need to build a shed to finish my projects in!)[Looks quite good with the jars in place and our new retro scales]

I think I might build something similar for the utility area and for storing shoes under the stairs as its so cheap with MDF and quite easy to clean once painted (I'll buy new paint though!).