Thread: Cutting Veneers - moisture content

I’d reckon the advantages would be less wear and tear on your blades.
The downside might be that you end up with kindling, that’s unlikely though. The pros do it green as grass.

i think it is all about how you store the material after you slice it.

Originally Posted by Enfield Guy

I’d reckon the advantages would be less wear and tear on your blades.
The downside might be that you end up with kindling, that’s unlikely though. The pros do it green as grass.

i think it is all about how you store the material after you slice it.

Thanks mate! Sounds like ripping into veneers while green is the normal process and the way to go. Now I'm thinking jt would be good to have a drum sander...

Cheers, Dom

I did this and ended up with warped like a potato chip Blackwood . It was from fresh cut green Balckwood though . I could still use the stuff as its good 1/4 sawn guitar quality and I think a burst in a steam box and pressing it flat would fix it . I would have been better off just leaving all of it at 1 or 1.5 inches and re sawing later . I left a fair bit that way as well. The bits I did thin , around 6mm, I bundled together with sticks in between nice and even, so everything could breathe and move, and tied it all together to allow movement across the width as it dried. I didn't need them in a hurry though so it was a mistake I learnt from .

edit
Ripping and drying for a veneer to lay may be a different thing than my 6mm . like if you did them at 3mm with one side machined flat and dried it while pressed . I don't know if that would work . Ive done that dry plenty of times but wet still has to shrink . I wonder if sliced veneer is sliced off wet and then dried at .6 mm? You would think it must be because they couldn't wait around for a log to dry before slicing it .

Rob

I just happen to have a book on veneering from the 1920s sitting next to me . They explain Cutting African Mahogany logs into flitches then slicing that into different thicknesses , depending on what was wanted. And then hanging that to dry in a drying room .

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Rob

The Cairns region was a leading producer of veneer and for manufacturing plywood. Sliced and rotary veneer mills were quite common. I used to ride home the long way from school via the Capricornia and Hancocks veneer mills so I could watch the machinery. The slicing machines held a special fascination for me as they magically produced thin consistent veneers amongst the steam and clatter of the mills.

Originally Posted by auscab

I just happen to have a book on veneering from the 1920s sitting next to me . They explain Cutting African Mahogany logs into flitches then slicing that into different thicknesses , depending on what was wanted. And then hanging that to dry in a drying room .

IMG_9556.JPGIMG_9558.JPG

Rob

Very cool Rob. I think I'll end up leaving the wood as long as I can before I need it and hopefully it will at least be free of the free-water and starting to dry down to something reasonable before cutting veneers.

The veeners will be about 300mm x 700mm and if I plane one side before cutting I will hopefully be able to get any deformation out when gluing / pressing them onto the substrate timber - then plane / sand the surface to finish.

Cheers, Dom

Visited a veneer mill at the old Boyer site near New Norfolk about 20 years ago. They were cutting veneers green as can be, with a machine that looked like a massive paper guillotine with blades 5 or 6 metres long that sliced very quickly in repetition. Once the veneers were cut they went onto conveyor belts and spent a few minutes passing through a fan forced drying kiln before being stacked in order on the other end of the kiln, bone dry.

The commercial veneer mills I have seen all slice their wood green. They are producing veneers under 3 mm thick. The rotary veneer mill peels whole green logs basically straight from the bush. The slicing mill uses flitches that are softened in hot water for about a day before slicing. After slicing the veneers are dried in kilns as AB described above.
Tony