Glowing Reviews
Have you ever been caught in a power outage and had
to grope your way out of a building or woke in the middle
of the night and be forced to stumble blindly to search
for a light switch or into a dark bathroom? Vistas Group
and Tower Industries Ltd., Massillon, Ohio, are working
to make those situations things of the past by introducing
Lumistone™ into the solid surface market. Their
product has not gone unnoticed as people are beginning
to see the light, so to speak.
Lumistone is a traditional Class I (flame retardant)
acrylic solid surface that contains the characteristic
of long lasting (8 to 10 hour) photoluminescence. The
line consists of full size sheets, strips, bowls, liquid
inlay cartridges and joint adhesive. In the light, it
is virtually indistinguishable from standard SS materials,
and in the dark it has a cool blue or green afterglow.
Lumistone 6-inch wide strips are ideal for usage as
floor moldings, door trim and tread risers. In public
institutions, these strips provide demarcation in darkness
in the event of a power failure in corridors and stairwells
when elevators are not available. Other ideas include
signage, switch plate covers, window sills, chair rail
moldings, inserts in hand rails and accent strips between
bowls and decks, etc. Full-size 36- by 144-inch sheets
are also available.
Sound Performance
Kevin Wyatt, vice president of Kedo Designs in Royal
Palm Beach County, Fla., has mingled his love of music
and solid surface to come up with a one-of-a-kind electric
guitar.
Having been involved with music since he was a child,
Wyatt said he has wanted to fabricate a solid surface
guitar since he got involved in the industry. With 10
years of pondering the project, he finally dug into it
and managed to put together a prototype in two or three
days. He then used that to make necessary adjustments
to come up with a more fitting version. However, it wasn't
without its trials.
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| Kevin Wyatt shows off
the guitar he created from Floranata solid surface
material. Wyatt said he was able to get the weight
down to a manageable level and found that SS has
great sound properties. |
"This material is very heavy, so I had to do a lot of
configuring inside the body to reduce weight," explained
Wyatt. "The completed, fully-assembled product is at
just about 8 1/2 pounds which is within the standards
for the weight of a guitar."
He said to deal with the weight he had to hollow some
sections of the guitar body. "Making sure that the material
I was taking away from the inside didn't interfere with
the integrity of the hardware that had to be mounted
on the outside was the only real tricky part of the project," said
Wyatt.
It is made from a test piece of Florenata that has a
metallic red coloring, giving it a look that even Jimmi
Hendrix would be happy with, but more important are the
fringe benefits when it comes to the sound..
"The sound of a solid body electric guitar is based
on the density and porosity of the material it is made
of," he said. "This material is nonporous and the density
is consistent piece after piece so it is possible to
reproduce the same sound again and again. Whereas with
a piece of wood, every piece is different so you can't
reproduce the same sound. Every one is going to sound
different. This material also allows for sustained sound,
which is very valuable to a guitar player."
Although he fabricated the guitar for his own use, it's
getting some good reviews on the local music scene.
"It's been seen by some local guitar technicians and
musicians and so far the feedback on it is that it is
an awesome instrument and it looks like it has marketing
possibilities," Wyatt added. "I'm going to need to make
a couple more before I can go further with it just to
make sure that all the bugs are worked out of it and
everything is 100 percent."
In the Red?
Sometimes innovation isn't where it goes but what goes
there, and this Zodiaq kitchen will have people seeing
red—but in a good way.
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| The use of an atypical
color in this modern kitchen turned out beautifully
and has an eye-catching appeal for designers looking
for something different. |
When it comes to which color choices work and which
do not, it's all about context. While in a commercial
setting, flamboyant countertops with flashy colors are
more of the norm, but when it comes to the kitchen in
a home, most designers call for less intense colors.
That being said, few would argue that the beauty of this
kitchen is not enhanced by the bold choice of DuPont's
Zodiaq Indus Red.
This dazzling kitchen catches the eye and shows the
beauty associated with engineered stone. Used in conjunction
with more subtle colors, this kitchen grabs your attention
but looks fabulous, and definitely leaves an impression
with the viewer.
A Splash of Innovation
Grifform Innovations has put together some unique backsplashes
and splash guards to make any kitchen or bathroom stand
out. Grifform took a component that is not normally associated
with 3-D or radius shapes and created a colorful and
curvaceous backsplash, which was made to fit with a standard
fabrication and added at installation.
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| Custom backsplashes
and splash guards were used to make these sinks
more unusual and appealing to customers. Clear
acrylic material, thermoformed shapes and inlayed
brass have made a noticeable improvement to more
typical designs. |
Another interesting sink accessory is the clear acrylic
splash guard. Grifform basically uses acrylic plastic
that actually looks like glass because of its green edge,
and cuts out the splashguard on CNC equipment. Then the
splash guard is polished and fixtures are developed to
allow a fabricator to install the guard into a sink unit.
The backsplash has a brass molding inlayed and pocketed
into the Corian, which was then installed by the fabricators.
Going with the Flow
DuPont is boiling over with excitement about its new
Corian bas-relief panels, an innovative product offering
that incorporates textures and patterns onto solid surface,
such as this panel featuring Pompeii Red in a "flow" pattern.
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| A bas-relief panel in
a Pompeii Red flow pattern was added behind this
countertop to give an original look and feel to
this kitchen area. |
The 9- by 18-inch panels are available in stock and
custom patterns and can be used for backsplashes and
other vertical applications. |
