Recent content by johnelliott

It's the same here, too, and has been for many years. I examine maybe 3 or 4 kitchens a week (less now since I stopped doing revamps) and I have never seen a gas meter in a kitchen cupboard. Under the stairs etc is far more likely. Electricity meter in a kitchen cupboard? maybe 2 in a hundred...

Modern neon strips such as those sold by Screwfix only need a 40-50mm pelmet and will mean that the cook has direct lighting when they are preparing food on the worktop. Ceiling lighting at best provides angled light, and at worst is blocked by the body of the person that needs the light. I...

This subject seems appropriate with the current interest in workshops and the coming winter. I have a lot of offcuts which I bring home and burn in the fireplace. Rather a waste as most of the heat goes up the chimney, and I have central heating I have a large workshop with a pitched and tiled...

There is one parameter of speaker cabinet design that can be controlled by enthusiastic music lovers and woodworkers, and that is cabinet size. Quite simply, the bigger the better. It's the compliance thing. To produce a given volume of sound the speaker has to move a given volume of air. To do...

The others are right. Avoid pine, the market is too low. I'll add to what was said about hardwood, consider american hardwoods such as white ash and white oak. They tend to be cheaper and less waste (square edged and bigger boards). Also, they are lighter in colour and that's what many people...

Sean specifically mentioned Blum undermount runners. I use them as well. I don't have equipment sensitive enough to measure the opening force on one of the drawers but I would guess it to be well under 1kg, probably under 100g. Pocket screws used in a drawer making application are inserted from...

Anything much less than 15mm isn't really ideal for pocket screws but 15mm is fine, both for the screws and for the drawer runners. I use these drawer runners every day, and all my drawers are made from 15mm birch ply, and they work perfectly and look good John Modedit Newbie_Neil

Pick up a piece of birch ply and tap it, then do the same thing with a similarly sized piece of MDF, and you will hear what I mean John

Put Mr Shahianian in front of me and I will be happy to say it to him. I really don't care how much his stuff costs. As someone who works with birch ply and MDF everyday, and who has some knowledge of acoustics and speaker systems, I stand by my previous statement John

Birch ply is too stiff and will vibrate at certain frequencies and not others, therefore colouring the sound MDF will have far less effect on the sound, which is what you want John

But 15mm is exactly what you need with these runners! It's what they are designed for. This is because the drawer side sits in the space between the carcase side and the flat part of the runner that the drawer sits on, and that distance is set by the design of the runner. If you are using a...

Danish oil is excellent. This process was used on the kitchen pictured above- Two coats is plenty. First coat brush it on liberally, then wipe off and let it dry. Then denib with for instance grey scotchbrite or (what we use) a stanley knife blade held vertically and drawn gently over the...

Also worth considering- 8x2's of MR flooring chipboard T&G all round. The tongue and grooves help spread the load and also keep the joining edges flat. It's cheap too John

IMO, yes Not sure I follow this. Do you mean should it have a cornice? I hate cornice. Virtually every kitchen I see has it, and most times the mitres have opened. How high is the ceiling? Most of the kitchens I do, the cupboards go all the way to the ceiling which- increases storage space...

Trev paid me £700 for the saw, BTW, collected John