The 113-Degree Corner

A Japanese restaurant in LA was renovating their kitchen. They needed a set of stainless steel work tables to sit flush against two walls. Sounds simple enough — except the two walls met at 113 degrees, not a clean 90. And on one wall, there was a fire pipe sticking out about 75 millimeters, right at the kick plate level. The tabletop had to sit tight against the wall. No gaps. Otherwise grease and grime build up in the crack, and the health inspector won’t let it slide.

The client had already tried two other suppliers before us. The first was a local sheet metal shop. They said they couldn’t do it as a standard item — custom only, eight weeks minimum. The second one took the job. The result? A 9-millimeter gap between the countertop and the wall. Their installer just filled it with silicone caulk and called it done. The client made them tear it out.

Then the client came to us and asked if we could do it.

Honestly, I hesitated at first. A 113-degree angle is the kind of job where if your field measurements are off even slightly, you end up with another 9-millimeter disaster. The approach of “roughly measure it, tweak the angle in CAD, weld it up” — the previous supplier already proved that doesn’t work.

I figured the problem wasn’t in the welding. It was in the measuring.

So I called a surveyor I’d worked with before in LA and asked him to go scan the site with a 3D laser scanner. He mapped the entire wall — every bump, every irregularity, including the exact position of that fire pipe. Margin of error: under one millimeter.

Back at the factory, we rebuilt the model from the scan data. I split the table into three sections: the main table on the left, a shorter section on the right, and a corner connector in the middle. The connector was designed with a little adjustment built in, so the installers had about plus or minus three millimeters of play on site. The edge of the tabletop that met the wall was cut using the scan data — so the cut line followed the actual shape of that specific wall, not a theoretical straight line. The fire pipe got a curved notch, fully welded and rounded off at the edges, so nothing gets trapped there.

The tables arrived, and installation took three hours. The client pulled out a feeler gauge and checked the gap between the countertop and the wall. The biggest gap he found was 1.8 millimeters. The tightest spot was 0.3.

He squatted there for a minute, didn’t say much. Then he stood up, patted me on the arm, and said, “That’s how it should be done.”

A while later, he referred me to his friend who runs a ramen shop next door.

The job itself wasn’t rocket science. The point is, you can’t just run a tape measure over a weird wall and call it good enough to cut metal. With custom work, the difference between a 1.8-millimeter fit and a 9-millimeter disaster is decided at the very first step: how you measure.

Need custom stainless steel fabrication for non-standard kitchen layouts? Contact our engineering team for a technical consultation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you build work tables for non-90-degree corners?

Yes — this case covers a 113-degree corner with a 75 mm pipe offset. What made it work was verifying the field angle with a 3D laser scan before cutting, not after. Odd geometries are routine for us: custom fabrication.

Why is a laser scan better than a tape measure for angles like this?

A tape measure gives you distances, not the true angle between two walls that are not plumb or square. The scan captured the actual 113 degrees and the pipe position, so the tabletop fit on the first installation.

Is there a minimum order for one-off custom pieces?

1 unit. A single custom piece is a normal order here — production still runs 3–5 days. Same terms on a one-off as on a container: order and lead times.