Cabinet Making Heritage
We love a challenge at Ashton Bespoke and sometimes our client’s briefs drive us to evolve and find innovative solutions. We have a highly skilled team of craftsmen at Ashton who have trained and honed their abilities allowing us to create unique and beautiful fine furniture. Cabinet making has been a skilled craft for centuries in Britain with knowledge that is passed down through generations. We’ve come a long way since the first rudimentary flint tools were used but those first woodworkers are part of the heritage of cabinet making. We draw on all that inherited skill and ancient techniques and marry them with modern machinery at our disposal to deliver what our clients want.
The Challenge
For one of our recent London based projects, our client wanted to achieve a reeded effect to the central door panels of some wardrobe doors. We knew that to deliver this for them, the face side would have to be solid oak. Our first challenge was to work out how we could machine this accurately. We had to consider both factors as making the panels in solid substrate would also create an issue. We knew that the door panels will expand and contract so this would have to be incorporated within the design to allow for this. Another aspect of the design was an inset antique bronze detail set between the door panel and the door frame. This meant that we were not able to incorporate an expansion gap for the door panel. The final factor for us to consider was that making these in solid oak this would mean that the doors would also be heavy.
Innovative Solution
The solution was for us was to use an aluminium honeycomb core to the panel which would give strength, stability and reduce the weight considerably. This structure consisted of a 15mm thick aluminium core with 8mm of solid oak glued to the face side and then two layers of constructional veneer glued to the back face. To make the reeded cut we had a special tooling made for the CNC machine, which is a computerised router that will cut to the thou of a mm accurately. It took several passes to complete the panel, but we felt the final effect was stunning. A simple design but one which challenged us to utilise our knowledge of wood and tooling allowing us to evolve our skills once again. A project that was solved using the experience of our cabinet makers and then embracing modern technology to deliver a superior product.
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