Southeast Tool

Curved Kitchen Island

Listing #1298 Listed on: 05/31/2008 Company Name: Fluted Beams LLC
Name: Chris Mroz

The curved kitchen island uses several new techniques in wood bending. For this gallery post I'm going to focus on the curved top. It is made from Ash, 1 1/2" x 1 1/2", compressed for cold bending, then built into a glue and screw lam. The planks are glued and screwed as they are bent. Moisture content is carefully controlled for bending, gluing and drying. It is kept dead flat by drying it after bending on a radiant heat floor with occasional rotation to keep it drying evenly. The top is finished with 6 coats of Waterlox Tung Oil. My next top will be made from wider bent planks, probably 3". It is fastened close to the center to allow some sideways movement, but at 15" wide, it isn't expected to move a lot. I am considering producing these tops commercially. This one is the first prototype. It is about 1 1/2 years old, with no defects showing up.

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Posted By:cefjr
Could you say a bit more about "compressed for cold bending"?
Posted By:Chris Mroz
"Compressed for Cold Bending"... This is a Danish process developed in the 90's to compress planks of preconditioned solid hardwood by up to 25% (lengthwise) to make it extremely flexible (while it is moist). After bending, the wood is dried to fix the shape. There are no chemicals or other treatments used, just intense longitudinal compression. It causes the cell walls to produce a sort of a bellows effect. Kind of like comparing a straight drinking straw to a flexible hospital straw when you compare kiln dried wood to Compwood or compressed hardwood. I own the only Compwood press in the Americas and use it to compress hardwoods for my own products and also commercially for resale to furniture factories, but also to woodworkers, and others. There are only a small number of machines worldwide, mostly dedicated to Windsor chair back production in furniture factories in Asia. The process is not well known. If you are interested in this further, you will find a lot of information on it at www.flutedbeams.com or www.extremewoodbending.com.
Posted By:eldon stromberg
Looking 4 a curved type, contemporary kitchen. Seems like designers are stuck on "oriental" straight line-a common mistake of amateurs.

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