Wooden worktops

Avoid oak. You're pretty much guaranteed to get "iron stain" problems from something. Maple or a tropical (teak or iroko, which is cheaper) would be better, IMHO.

-- Smert' spamionam

A *decent* jigsaw will do the cut outs, but you may get a bit of smoking on the blade. I found Ikea beech very sticky. Also, be very careful with the layout. With separate taps and sink you can end up with very little room for error.

What I used was a jigsaw, a straight edge and a deep router bit. Jig roughly to size, then use a single pass of the router at full depth to plane the edges square.

I used a belling router bit with a ball race to get curved edges.

A good sand and several coast of Danish Oil has provided a more resliient surface than I expected - on oak.

I used a LOT of clear silicone on top of the belfast to seal that as well. Didn't bother with routed drain slots. Just wipe it into the sink. Its fine. SWMBO is muutering about inset slate drainers, but she can sodding well wait for that :-)

Did two right angle joins - in the end, just butt jointed - before routing the bevelled edges. Looks tidy. Bevel the underside front edge before fittong, but the top last of all.

Butt joints were done with glue, and plates screwed underneath,

sounds expensive, unless that is for the whole lot and not lengths ...... also check here;

iroko dust is an irritant to both skin and respiration, so wear a dustmask or better still a respirator when routing. a jig for sink drainer is relatively simple; you use a ball groover and a guide bush ....... and you construct a jig out of ply or MDF strips that has the right size gap for the bush a support strip screwed at right angles at the bottom of both ends, the bottom strip thickness is what decides the fall of your drainer, one end rests inside your sink cut out, the other end sits on the worktop and that gives you the fall, clamp in place, set your depth on the router and rout away. Spacing of the strips gives you the spacing of the drainer channels

Not sure if this helps but IKEA should be getting delivery of its OAK worktops in 3 weeks time. 186mm costs about £80 and 246 about £120. From memory it's 606mm x 38mm.

-- Chris Spyrou numero communications limited

Cheapest blanks I've found so far are £510 for

Cheers

Jon

Where did you get your wood, and how much did you pay?

I got my worktops via arena kitchens - its not actually FROM them - they are sort of online brokers - can't remember the price but try

My rubberwood worktops were *far* less than that. About 120 to 150 pounds for 3 metres by 600mm.

Yes, here you go:-

try howdens, MFI trade