technical veeneering application question

Re: technical veeneering application question

Barry Irby

Bill, I would make book matched home made veneer as thin as I could and glue it to a cherry substrate.

On pieces that small I have had good luck making veneer less than a 1/16" . I sliced it about 3/32". Used a piece of MDF and ran it through a Perfomax drum sander with a very light touch just to level the surface. Backed off the sander, double stick taped the veneer to the MDF and ran it though. Cut t he veneer about two inches too long land used the tape on the lead end. I find the sander is prone to mangle the ends. If nothing else it will reduce the thickness of the lead end by the thickness of the tape.

I find that if you cut a very slight bevel on the corners/edges of the veneered pieces it does and excellent job of hiding the veneer and it reduces the chance the edges will snag and get lifted.

Re: technical veeneering application question

Jesse Cloud

That's a tough one. 1/8th veneer is going to want to move pretty much like regular wood. As already said, thinner is better.

Laminating a thin slice of arced cherry to another cherry piece might work if the arc is not too strong and the pieces aren't too wide. Problem is that the movement of the different layers will be in different directions.

A play-it-safe strategy would be to put thin veneer around a few plies of baltic birch or even better mdf, with real wood trim around the edges. A good veneer supplier (I use certainlywood) will have pictures of the wood online and be willing to help you select the best wood for your project over the phone. You can buy two or three pieces of sequence matched veneer and make a good bookmatch. You would have to reverse one piece for the bookmatch so that the rough side of one piece would be showing. Very careful sanding can improve the match.

Let us know how you solve this one. Very interesting!

Re: technical veeneering application question

Mark Hennebury

I would tend to hold out for the elusive 8/4 piece personally.

But other than that; go ahead and laminate the bookmatched 4/4 to a cherry sub, i don't think that it will make any difference what thickness it is 1/8", 1/4" or 1/2" i don't see that there will be enough stress to fracture a glue joint.

Veneering over solid stock

Steve Elliott

I've glued typical veneer (about 20 thousandths thick) over solid stock of the same species on a number of projects with no problems. Of course I put veneer on both sides of the pieces. I think the layers of glue on each side would affect wood movement as much or more than finish would and I want the pieces balanced.

If you're sawing your own veneer you could make it extra thick, glue it on both sides and then plane down to whatever veneer thickness you desire.

Last year I was asked to match some sassafras cabinetry with frame and panel doors for one of our most important customers. I looked everywhere for solid sassafras with fine, straight grain and couldn't find anything close. I eventually used sassafras veneer over solid wood and when the work was installed it turned out that the original doors had been done the same way.

Re: technical veeneering application question

Don Stephan

Quite often two boards are glued face to face to get a needed greater thickness, so I'm not sure why that couldn't be done here. I would try to match flatsawn to flatsawn or rift to rift or quartered to quartered, and have the two thicknesses similar, so the glue line is near the middle of the lamination. If I were to resaw thin slices such as 1/8" or less my inclination would be as suggested, glue a similar resawn thickness to each side of the solid cherry core. Sounds like a great way to simulate arched top doors. Hope you'll remember to point out the use of the curved top rail grain in completed photos.

Re: technical veeneering application question

E Phillip Smith

I have a stack of church pew supports that are 1 1/2 inch thick that are laminated from 3/4" stock. These are mahogany but I have also seen the same in oak. If you can laminate 3/4" stock don't see why you will have a problem with 1/8" veneer especially if you balance it.

Re: technical veeneering application question

Sgian Dubh

You shouldn't have a problem Bill. I've done similar, and I've seen similar done in other people's work.

Here are some points that should help reduce your concerns about cupping or other distortion.

1. The parts are narrow, i.e., door rails.

2. They are relatively short.

3. They presumably will be M&Td into the door stiles, which will largely eliminate the likelihood of cupping.

Here are matching up suggestions that should help:

1. Veneer a quarter sawn piece on to a quarter sawn ground.

2. Veneer a tangentially sawn piece on to a tangentially sawn ground.

3. Veneer rift sawn material to a rift sawn ground.

4. Match the orientation of growth rings, e.g., match end grain 'smiles' of the veneer and the ground.

In other words, generally try to avoid mixing the cut of the two materials (and species) in order to try and closely match typical shrinkage and expansion patterns. Slainte.

Thanks to all, what I will do

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

First, my great appreciation for all those with experience for responding.

We are talking about 2 piddly pieces of wood 2" x 15". It' s not like I can't experiment.

1. I found a 4/4 board with a "U' grain. Presumably I can divide the U and get the result I want with no veneer issues to contend with. The disadvantage of this route is the 1 1/4" long tenon. After cutting a tenon on each end of the bisected U, the grain will only approximate match end to end, being 2 1/2" separated by manufacture of the tenons. I suppose I could loose tenon the joint.....

2. But, one should not miss a learning opportunity . So I shall proceed to veneer a pair of rails.

3. This all may be a fool's errand anyway. To "lift" this squatty structure I need the stiles to span the vertical space of the opening as shown in the drawing. My quest for book matched arching rails would be best for rails that spanned the width of the door. I suppose I could make them long enough to frame the opening this way, mock it up and see how it looks.

Why didn't I take up Period Furniture copying! All these design issues would have been solved for me in 1720. The answer of course is that nobody likes this furniture now days.

Re: Thanks to all, what I will do

TomD

Krenov has section in his book on using "real" veneer, and many have followed him. Basically you want to put pieces on both sides, for balance, other than that, fairly forgiving. Most modern glues will act as a barrier to moisture, so if you have a veneer that this on one side only, you may well get distortion for that reason alone.

Early in my woodworking career, I used a lot of this kind of thing, and had a few spectacular failures on paddles, but we really mixed it up a lot, a few turned into hydrometers.