Querkus Adagio MDF – 3050×1220 mm (10×4′) – 19 mm

19 mm Querkus Adagio is a real oak veneered panel by Decospan, with wide, crown cut oak running the length of a full sheet and none of the cost, the movement or the waste of solid boards.

What makes Adagio the calm one in the range is how the face is laid up. Each sheet is jointed from three wide crown cut boards using Decospan’s mixmatch technique, so the grain never falls into the repeating, mirrored pattern that gives a cheap veneer away. Crown cut is the figure most people picture when they think of oak: broad cathedral arches with softer, flowing grain either side. The face is brushed, which lifts the harder grain so the surface has texture you can feel as well as see.

Cutting and handling

This is a long, heavy panel and a genuine two person lift, so check the route in before it is delivered. The veneer is thin, so keep the good face upwards on a table or plunge saw, score the line before you cut it, and never drag a sheet across anything. A scratch through an oak veneer cannot be sanded out. Behind the face the panel is built to stay flat: two layers of veneer are pressed to an 18 mm MDF core, the second acting as a balancer.

Fixing and painting

Sand lightly and stop, because it is very easy to go through a veneer on a corner, and once you are into the MDF underneath there is no fixing it. Finish it as you would solid oak, and test on an offcut first: oak varies and the same oil reads differently sheet to sheet. The brushed texture takes an oil particularly well, since the finish settles into the open grain. Edge it with matching oak tape or a solid lipping.

Where not to use it

It is an interior panel on an MDF core, so keep it out of bathrooms and anywhere it will get wet. If you want a busier, narrow planked face instead, look at Querkus Allegro on the same page, and the rest of the boards on the MDF page.