| David Gunton's Hardwood Floors. Grange Lane, Winsford, Cheshire, CW7 2PS Tel: +44 (0)1606 861 442 Fax: +44 (0)1606 861 445 wideboards@gmail.com |
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The Sycamore Sea
Click on a picture to see a larger version.
This page demonstrates how individual is each floor we make.
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This floor was created for a speculative developer in a London house opposite Tony Blairs heavily guarded home.
The parquet elements of the field of the floor are of European Sycamore, a very lovely wood which glistens, has chatoyance and depth. The viewer tends to see into the wood rather than onto it.
An acer, acer pseudoplatanus, this particular stock was drawn from Hungary. Around 25% of the stock was rejected for inclusion in the floor because of defects such as knots or discolouration.
The battens, cut to shape on CNC machines, are 10mm thick and are bonded with a rigid adhesive to a 12mm hardwood plywood underlay, itself fixed to the softwood board floor. There are alternately left and right hand battens which you can see if you analyze the photos carefully.
The border is of cross banded South American Tulipwood (D. decipularis) with wenge (Millettia laurentii ) tramlines. On landings the decorative border is omitted to avoid fussiness in small spaces.
In making the floor the craftsman has to pay close attention to randomizing the slight variations in colour of the battens to avoid crowding groups of very similar colour together. At the same time it is not desirable to so alternate the light and dark battens that another pattern is set-up. the aim is to reflect as close as possible ripples of water. That image is much more evident when the floor is seen by eye than fixed by photography.
The finish is water based two pack polyurethane.