Why we use the materials we use

We get asked fairly often why our table tops and shelves cost more than some of the others out there. It's a fair question, so here's the honest answer. It comes down to what they're made of and how they're put together.

The board underneath

Every table top and shelf we make starts with plywood, not MDF or chipboard.

For most of our tops we use Garnica poplar ply. It's responsibly sourced from managed European plantations, and it's lightweight. In a motorhome or campervan that matters. Every kilo you add to the furniture is a kilo off your payload, and a poplar top is a lot easier to lift on and off a leg in the middle of a lay-by too.

On our thinner 15mm tops and shelves we switch to birch ply. Poplar is brilliant, but at 15mm there just isn't enough meat in it to hold a screw or a fixing properly. Birch is heavier, but it's dense and strong, and on a thin board that's what you need.

So why not MDF or chipboard? They're cheaper, and that's about the only thing going for them in a van. Both are heavy. Both soak up moisture, and a van is a damp place, especially in winter. Once a chipboard edge gets wet it swells and crumbles and there's no getting it back. MDF isn't much better, and neither of them holds a screw well once it's been in and out a couple of times. Plywood, layer on layer of real timber, just doesn't have those problems. This is why you don't see motorhome manufacturers using MDF or chipboard. They use poplar ply, the same as us, because it's the right material for the job.

The surface on top

Our tops are finished in HPL, high pressure laminate, from Egger, Altofina, Formica and others. It's the same stuff used on kitchen worktops, so it shrugs off hot mugs, spilt coffee, keys, dog claws and everything else van life throws at it.

We keep a range of standard colours and woodgrains in stock, the same ones we use in our pre-made kits. If you choose a table or shelf in one of those you'll keep the cost down, because the board is already pressed and ready to cut. But if you want something different, for a bit extra we can press almost any HPL from the Egger, Altofina or Formica ranges, so we can match what's already in your van or give you something no one else has.

It's not a printed vinyl wrap, and it's not the thin paper based melamine you find on flat pack furniture. Those look fine on day one, but they scratch, they chip on the corners, they peel at the edges and once they're damaged there's no repairing them.

How it's stuck together

This is the bit most people never see, and it's probably the most important.

We don't glue laminate on by hand. Our boards are pressed in a machine using a two part adhesive. That gives an even bond right across the sheet, corner to corner, with no dry spots and no air trapped underneath. It's why our tops don't bubble or delaminate when the van's been sat in the sun all August or parked up cold all winter.

A lot of cheaper tops are made with contact adhesive rolled on by hand. It works, until it doesn't. Heat and time are not its friends.

Cutting and edging

Once the boards are pressed they go onto our CNC. It's a 10x5 machine with an automatic tool changer, which means it swaps its own cutters part way through a job, so a top can be cut, drilled and profiled in one go without anyone touching it. That's how we can make a top to your own drawing, or match the exact curve of your existing furniture, and get it right every time rather than nearly right.

The edges are then banded on our curved edgebander. Most edgebanders only do straight edges. Ours will run round a full 8x4 sheet in any shape you like, curves, radiused corners, the lot. It uses laser edge detection to track the board, so the joint where the edging starts and finishes is neat and tight rather than a visible step, and the edge is properly bonded to the board all the way round. Between the two machines that's a serious amount of money sat on the workshop floor, and yes, some of that is in the price. But it's why every top is cut and edged the same way, whether it's the first one or the hundredth.

A machine only gets you so far, though. Every edge is still finished by hand in the workshop, trimmed, eased and checked, before it's packed. It's the difference between an edge that looks factory made and one that feels like it was made for your van.

Nothing screwed to your van

Wherever we can, our shelves and tops mount with clamps rather than screws. You're not drilling into your kitchen upstand, you're not voiding anything, and if you ever sell the van you can take it all out and it's back to how it left the factory.

Made once, made properly

We could make them cheaper. We'd just have to use worse board, a thinner surface and a quicker glue, and we know exactly how that ends up because we see the results when people come to us for a replacement.

We've been making furniture for over thirty years and we'd rather make something once and make it properly. If you've got a question about any of the materials, or you want a top to your own design, get in touch. Always happy to chat.

Many thanks,
Keith (aka Chippy)