Hob Splashback

[Richard Conway]

Hi all,

I'm about to embark on fitting a new gas hob into the new worktop and have turned my thoughts towards the splashback behind the hood which we are intending to use stainless steel for. The hob is kind of in a corner (ish) - that is, the wall to the right of the hob juts out about

250mm:

WALL

---------------################### +--------------+ # 250mm WALL JUTTING OUT BIT | | # | | #-------------- | HOB | WALL | | | | +--------------+

What I would ideally like to do is have the stainless steel splashback coming around the corner (i.e. # in the diagram). The way I see it is these are the options:

1) Two seperate sheets of stainless steel - one at the back and one at the side. How would I go about joining these though?

2) Have one sheet of steel fabricated with a fold to fit into the corner

- anyone any ideas how much something like that would cost? What type of business would I need to look for to do it?

Presumably 2 would give the neater finish, but I suspect it will be more expensive and may be difficult to get spot on as our walls tend to be anything but purpendicular.

If we went for 1, I thought a cheap option would be to buy a wide standard splashback (i.e. 750mm x 1000mm) and cut the two splashbacks from it (i.e. 1 at 600mm wide and 1 at 250mm wide) - how hard is stainless steel sheet to cut with - can it be done with a jigsaw?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks, Richard.

[GMM]

Richard,

I recently fitted my kitchen with stainless splashbacks. Behind the hob, I used a single flat stainless sheet (because it came as a package with the cooker hood) but for the rest of the kitchen I used 'imperativ' s/s panels from Ikea. These were pretty good value (10 -

12 quid each) and easy to work with, but they may not necessarily come in the right sizes for you (60 x 45, 60 x 70 and 80 x 45 cm). They are a s/s skin over a corrugated plastic back and about 6mm thick. These stick easily to the wall with gripfix, which 'takes' after a few minutes (ie let go too soon and it gently slips down the wall!).

They cut fine with a jigsaw, which I found to be the best thing. Take it easy and watch out for shards of metal in the eye if, like me, you like to watch the line of the blade closely (where did I leave those goggles?). The only problem I had was that swarf from the cut gets between the sole plate of the saw and the panel, scratching the surface, so I put strips of masking tape on the panel parallel to each cut before cutting. The other thing to watch out for is to make sure that you have the 'grain' of the s/s brushed fnish running the same way on all panels, otherwise it looks a bit odd and 'er indoors will make you take one off and do it again (I can't imagine how I'd know that....).

For an internal 90 degree corner, you can just butt them together and seal with clear silicone. I had two 45 degree turns to cover and I found that I could snip the 'return' (ie the 6mm that is folded back to cover the plastic) with tin snips then put the panel over a straight bench edge and bend into shape, giving a continuous cover with only a small arc in the angle of the corner. That approach probably would work with a right angle too, but I didn't need to find out.

For any cut edges, I found a small 'U' shaped plastic trim in B&Q that clips tightly onto the s/s (easing the plastic backing away from it with a Stanley knife first) and covers the inevitably jagged edge left from the cut. I'm sure a purist would have filed it to a perfect edge, but I thought it gave a good result.

Good luck

[John Rumm]

Would not cutting with the jigsaw on the reverse side not work better?

[GMM]

John,

I'm sure you're right, for a plain sheet, but these jobbies from Ikea are s/s wrapped around the front and sides of corrugated plastic, which is a bit soft for pressing the jigsaw against. I didn't try it from the reverse side but assumed it would jump and chatter or that I would compress and distort the plastic too much to be able to fit it properly to the wall afterwards. Once I realised what was causing the scratching, the masking tape solved it most simply. I'd recommend a good supply of 4 for a quid rolls of masking from Poundland. Pretty poor for a precise paint job, but just the thing for something like this...

[Piers Finlayson]

When I did my last kitchen I used I think these guys

although their website is a bit different know so can't guarantee exactly the same. My stuff didn't claim the anti-bacterial nonsense.

They did custom rectangular cuts of self-adhesive backed steel. I got a large one for the cooker splashback and then long thin ones for lining behind the worktops. At the corners I just lined up the two. Could have sealed it as well but never bothered - it was a close enough fit to look good. However, my cooker wan't in the corner - you may well want to seal if you go this route.

It easy to deal with them - I just emailed them the measurements, they gave me a quote, I paid, they delivered, with most of the long pieces coiled up and well packaged..

[Ed Sirett]

Firstly have a look at

are held by the sockets, by adhesive and by the cupboard end panels.

I spent £435 on these total. Archway Sheet Metal Co. next to the Spurs Stadium made them.

One panel needed about 2mm to be sliced off the width (my measuring not their cutting) which I did carefully with a wet diamond tile saw. I did not want to get the metal hot or it would have blued.

Black and Clear CT1 (a multi-resin sealant/adhesive ) was the adhesive/caulk as needed. The corners are simple but joints.

The only down side was that the worktops had to be scribed in much closer (say 0-1mm) to the wall than I would for tiling (say 0-5mm).

The panels are joined on the flat with a metal H-section strip.

I could have drilled holes and used stainless cup washers and screws if all else had failed.

BTW it took me a while to twig the following results for the new socket ring circuit.

L-L 0.25 Ohm N-N 0.25 Ohm E-E 0.17 Ohm was expecting 0.41

[John Rumm]

CPC in parallel with rather more conductive wall than might otherwise be expected!

(Snazzy kitchen BTW!)

[Richard Conway]

Hi Ed,

From a regs point of view, would I need the splashback in place before the man comes to connect the hob? Walls are just bare plaster ATM.