Michael Holigan: Solid surface countertops are a great choice for the kitchen of your new house or the kitchen you're giving a facelift with a little remodeling. Corian solid surfaces like these are some of the most popular and for some good reasons. They come in a wide variety of beautiful colors and finishes. And the material can be cut and shaped very easily to suit any design idea or installation need you can imagine. What kind of blade is that that can cut through something like this.
Bobby Hewitt: A lot of your tools are just like on your woodworking tools. It's a carbide tipped tool. The thing about it is, is that where you, like you'd have a 40 tooth ripping blade if you were ripping a sheet of plywood. That tool has a 100 teeth on it.
M.H.: Wow.
BH: So that gives you a nice smooth edge when you cut it.
M.H.: Bobby Hewitt runs a large Corian fabrication and installation business. Here in the fabrication stage we have our first opportunity to see how all the seams are made invisible and is strong as the rest of the countertop.
BH.: We have two chemicals. One is a catalyst and the other one is a color. And you mix the two together. When you mix the two together it has a chemical reaction to it that actually heats the product and when it heats the product it fuses both pieces together so that they become one and just if you'll feel this tube in about 15 minutes it'll be extremely hot.
MH.: Okay. BH: On all our seams we use what we call...it's a 3M stretch tape. Used to, years ago, people would use bar clamps and stuff. The stretch tape actually just pulls the two pieces together and puts enough pressure on it so where it allows the perfect mixture on how much adhesive's in there, you don't squeeze too much out. And you leave it in.
M.H.: How long will it have to set like this?
BH: It depends on the weather. Like on a day like today, where it's close to 70, it'll take about thirty minutes. In the summertime, when you get days from 80 and 90 degrees and its fresh outside, in the house, it'll set up as fast as 10 to 15 minutes.
M.H.: After it's been done, then do we come back and sand the joints?
B.H.: Yeah. What we'll do is, we'll come back and we'll plane off the top of the surface where the joint is and then they'll go through the sanding steps, as far as finishing out the top.
M.H.: And we won't be able to see the seam?
B.H.: Won't be able to see the seam.
M.H.: Well, Bobby, it looks like they're putting the sink in now?
B.H.: One of the nice things about the Corian tops is that you have an option of either using a drop-in sink or a Corian sink, or in this case, you've got an under mount sink. You have an adhesive that's in-between the Corian and the sink that holds it as well as, what we do is, we take strips of Corian and we'll seam them to the bottom side of the sink. That insures that ten years from now that your sink is still intact, because adhesives, over time, with water splashing on it and just daily use, has a tendency to wear away your adhesives.
M.H.: So this will actually melt right into the Corian.
B.H.: Yeah, just like if you were doing a drop edge or a job seam or, you know, seaming two pieces together, they'll actually fuse together so that it can't ever come off.
M.H.: And since it's actually becoming one piece, we never will have a leak, even cleaning around it or anything?
B.H.: No. The only disadvantage to this is, is that if you ever want to change out your sink, it makes it pretty difficult.
M.H.: Yeah. I guess it would be a problem, wouldn't it? Bobby, the finished product looks great, but how did you get this different color here on the drop edge?
B.H.: Well, actually this is three layers seamed together and as you can see on this top, you have a radius end on it. The thing about Corian is, is that you have the ability to heat it and shape it to the form that you want, whether you're doing inlays or radius tops like this.
M.H.: Yeah, the inlay looks perfect, I mean, to bend it like that. Can we see you bend some?
B.H.: We have some drop edges here in the oven. Basically, you've got to heat it for about 30 minutes at 375 and then you take it out.
M.H.: Wow! It's real flexible.
B.H.: It's flexible. I mean, you can bend it any way that you need to or...of course, it's hot. You can see we've got some pieces over there that we've already bent, but....
MH: Oh, so it does harden up then later on.
B.H.: It's just like if you wanted to, I mean, it's just like a rope. If you wanted to take it and do a radius end on it, that's all you have to do. And then you go ahead and glue it up while it's warm like this and then when it cools off, it shapes to the design that you need.
MH: Perfect. It's an easy material to work with then isn't it.
B.H.: Very easy.
MH: It appears that putting an edge on it is similar to the process of actually putting the pieces together.
B.H.: Yeah. The most important thing that you want to do when you're putting the drop edge on it and you'll see that, when he's going along he has one steady bead. That's so that you have a constant flow without getting any air bubbles in it. On your standard drop edge of an inch and a half, you take two pieces and you actually adhesive them together.
MH: If we have any problems with the top edge of the cabinet this will hide it as well, won't it?
B.H.: A lot of times you'll have some cabinets that are a little uneven. This gives you the ability to shim up the top where you need to so that you have a level countertop.
MH: Once the layers of the drop edge are firmly bonded together, it's a lot like working with wood again. An electric planer gently smoothes the edge in four or five passes removing only 1/16 to 1/32 of an inch at a time.
B.H.: Because if you take off too much too quick you'll stand a chance of chipping it. And this gives you a perfect 90 degree before you can do you final route on your finished drop edge depending on which profile.
MH: And we've got a nice profile now, so we can go ahead and put the router to it?
B.H.: Ah-huh.
MH: Because the color and texture of the Corian is the same all the way through, the router easily makes a soft rounded edge out of hard corners. Every where you cut, sand or plane off the solid surface material, you just expose more of the same. And that's why cooks and parents love solid surface countertops. Accidental burns, scratches and pen markings can be scoured away with a Scotch Brite pad in a matter of seconds with very little elbow grease. Bobby, besides the high gloss, what other finishes do these countertops come in?
B.H.: Well this is the top that we were looking at earlier and it's a semi-gloss.
MH: Okay. How about over here?
B.H.: This is part of a job that we were doing earlier on the drop-in sink and it's a matte finish.
MH: Okay. And we're going to install this tomorrow?
B.H.: Yes.
MH: Okay.
Episode 47 1996 - 97 Season
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