Elements of Furniture

4.7.1.1 Board Elements

Board elements of furniture are characterised by a much larger width and length in relation to thickness. They are usually divided into flat and curved elements. They can occur in all kinds of furniture as the top, the bottom, the sides, partitions, shelves, wide fronts and sides of drawers, worktops, etc. (Fig. 4.43). Due to the type of raw material they are made of, board elements require finishing both wide and narrow surfaces. Wide surfaces are subjected to veneering with decorative paper, laminate, foil, PVC and natural veneer. Narrow surfaces can be finished off by gluing wooden or synthetic laminated boards or also by folding and gluing milled edge parts of the board sheet (Fig. 4.44). This type of treatment does not increase the thickness of the board; however, it eliminates the use of veneers and fringes on narrow planes. If the thickness of the bottom, top, partition, side wall or worktop of a table is greater than the thickness of the chipboard, then a profiled laminated wooden board is usually used.

A similar effect can be achieved by milling, folding and gluing cut elements of boards (Fig. 4.45). Thanks to this treatment, the desired visual effect is obtained, without significantly increasing the weight of the furniture piece. Curved board

Fig. 4.43 Examples of flat board elements: a side wall, b slide, c top (top flange), d drawer front and e side wall of drawer

Fig. 4.44 Methods of working narrow planes of board elements

elements can be obtained by gluing many thin layers of board sheets: chipboards, HDF, MDF, laminates and plywood (Fig. 4.46a). When using a woodwork board, the corner is usually shaped from four-sided sanded strips, and then, it is all lam­inated with veneer (Fig. 4.46b). Chipboards and fibreboards are the perfect material for shaping repeatedly bent surfaces. The designed arches of folds of boards are obtained by incising grooves with a depth of up to 2/3 of the board’s thickness, bending the board on the same or the opposite side of the incision, and at the same time laminating both surfaces with laminate, plywood or veneer (Fig. 4.46c, d).

Updated: September 30, 2015 — 8:37 pm