Thread: Veneer / Bandsaw Cutting Service in Sydney?

Try George Fletcher & Son P/L at 8 Kookaburra Rd Hornsby Heights. You're probably better to drop by and speak to them rather than telephoning. They did some spindle moulding on a table I made a few years ago. You have a fair chance of their helping out if they're not too busy. I found them to be very nice people.

Good luck,

mick

Originally Posted by Elill

Hi All,

I have a heap of dressed spotted gum slab at home. I want to make a dining table with it, but want to have 3mm (maybe thicker?) veneers cut out of it, which I will then glue to a ply torsion box (with epoxy).

to using band sawn veneers

but why epoxy glue?

and how are you going to apply even pressure to get the veneer to stick flat to the torsion box?

Originally Posted by ian

to using band sawn veneers

but why epoxy glue?

and how are you going to apply even pressure to get the veneer to stick flat to the torsion box?

Its going to be a circle, cutting wedges out of veneers. Was going to glue one at a time. 4mm thick veneers (I checked my original plan). Just going to clamp down as I would any veneer (expert here - done it once ) basically thick mdf, then various 2x4's. With some baking paper in between.

I figured epoxy would be best - less room for movement? I can just use titebond if you think more appropriate?

I'd appreciate any advice or help

Suggestions

thickness, edge joint and arrange all your segments before you start glueing.

when edge jointing, number the segments and do them all as one package stacked concertina wise
-- if there's 6 segments and the face side is "a" and the glue side is "b", the segments should be stacked a1b - b2a - a3b - b4a - a5b - b6a for jointing. When you then open the pack up, the adjacent edges should match perfectly

take extreme care to keep the segments at the correct angle so there's no gap when you fit the last piece

edge the substrate with matching solid wood edging wide enough to allow for trimming after the veneers are glued down

tape the joining seams as tightly as you can on the face side -- I like using 3M's Blue painters tape

try and glue all the segments to the substrate in one go -- I've had success with slow setting PVA

with 4mm thick veneers, after taping the joints, I'd glue the face side of the veneer to newspaper
I'd then tape the newspaper to a platen and arrange some guides so that the veneer substrate is guided to where it needs to be to centre the pattern -- the solid wood edge strips will give you a few mm of leeway for final trimming
when you are ready glue all the edge joints, then apply glue to the veneers then place the substrate on top then apply clamping pressure -- you may find a home made vacuum bag will make clamping much easier

Hi, If you are resawing into veneers would suggest not going any thicker than 3mm as there comes a point when the woods natural shrinkage and expansion with humidity change overcomes the strength of the adhesive used,2-3mm is a good range as this was what was used for the majority of veneering in the 17/18th century with animal glue.

The simplest way would be to use a vacuum press if you had one, and to use epoxy but your torsion box construction would need to be exceptionally sturdy.

Your approach of using pva and one piece at a time would work, although a little long winded and might be your best option.

the main thing about torsion boxes and veneer is that they don't go together very well. Its probably particularly true with bandsaw-cut veneers because unless they are dead flat across the entire area (very unlikely) then you will need an awful lot of pressure to flatten out 4mm thick timber. Where the pressure is applied to the ribs of the box then that may be OK if its solidly built, but in the interstices the substrate will tend to move away from the press no matter how much pressure you apply.

A few years ago I was doing a job that required veneer to be applied to a torsion box and I rang every veneering outfit in Sydney and they all refused to do it - even though I told them I understood the risk and was taking it on myself.

If you must use a torsion box I'd be inclined to use epoxy because it doesn't require the 'drive the air out and the glue in' pressure that veneering with pva does - in fact its gap filling so its more a matter of just making contact all over and if you can be confident that is happening then you don't need any more pressure.

Agree with Mark about not going above 3mm veneer. More then that and you aren't veneering - you're really just glueing two pieces of wood together so all the issues of expansion and contraction which you can usually ignore with commercial veneers will reassert themselves.

Also, I've done quite a few of those star shaped veneer jobs and the way I usually do it is to joint all the pieces together except one which is left very slightly oversize. All the pieces except the oversize one are then layed up together. Finally the oversize one is laid in place taking micro-fine slices off if necessary to get the perfect fit. I'm sure that jointing them all up at once and laying them up together will work for the experienced but is a bit sudden death for my tastes.

cheers
Arron

I would say 4mm thick is too thick, I'd be looking for a sanded thickness of 1 to 1.5mm prior to gluing and I'd make up the veneer as a complete piece before gluing and I'd use epoxy.

Just my 2c


Pete