Thread: Thick (4mm) veneer warped - help!

You may find the metho a little too quick evaporating to bring all cells back to size. Steam would be the best for total penetration.
A picture would be good to see just how badly warped it is.

Originally Posted by jw2373

Gday,

I’ve recently got some thick veneer (4mm) that has warped quite badly. The seller didn’t say how bad it was, so it was a disappointing surprise. No way of having it replaced as it was the last of it so my question is how do I flatten it? A suggestion was to spray it well with metho then sticker and put weight on it. Will that work, or does anyone have other suggestions? It’s beautiful Birdseye huon pine, so I really want to sort the issue out if I can. It’s a shame the other person didn’t recognise the storage issues with highly figured timber.

Thanks!

You asked me independently Josh, and I've thought some more about your problem since. As I have often said, I'm not a wood worker but focus on such problems from the theory / causes plus what I recall others have found and so may appear opinionated.

Steaming the wood is a way of softening it. In fact they steam or boil logs and billets before cutting / slicing veneers. Steaming allows stresses that cause warping etc to be reduced BUT these stresses (warping) may return when the wood dries unless well glued to a substrate. Remember Huon is oily and not easily glued either. Solvents can remove the surface oil but that may change its colour as well.

I seem to recall that wet cloths eg linen cloth eg tea towels have been used and a hot iron (with steam injection) used to generate surface steam with gentle pressure. Obvious thinner section would be quicker to soften, but it may well twist, bow and warp as it dries again … unless glued.

Maybe the guitar or uke makers (eg Cal) bend thin wood around a former for uke sides this way? Why not send him an PM (see recent ukulele posts)

Euge

I would be inclined to use the wet cloth and weight strategy and do it just before you are ready to use it and glue once flat.

A good steam and weight it flat. I will dekink.

Treat it just like veneer.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

A good steam and weight it flat. I will dekink.

Treat it just like veneer.

Didn’t know you were kinked. Hope you get better soon

Originally Posted by Lappa

Didn’t know you were kinked. Hope you get better soon

Is he kinked, or is he kinky?

Josh, highly figured veneers, even thick ones are bound to distort severely when drying, and virtually always need flattening just before use. Your problems are compounded by the thickness of this stuff, it's going to take perseverance to get it into a glue-able state. If you have enough of it, I suggest you do some experimenting to find the best approach.

Having done about a half square metre of veneering in total in my entire career, I'm in no position to advise from experience, but I've read about it over the years (I was considering hammer-veneering a desk at one stage). I've seen the wet cloth & steam iron advocated (by Tage Frid,for one), but this was for thinner veneers around a mm thick. In your case it's going to take a while for the steam/water to penetrate, so by the time you work from one end to the other, the first bit may be curling up again. I would try soaking a piece, laying it between sheets of newspaper (might need some plain butchers' paper for the first couple of layer s to prevent ink marking the pale wood), and clamping the sandwich between two pieces of heavy ply or particle board for a few days.

It's usually recommended to add glycerine (~10%) to your spray water to help soften the wood. I don't know if glycerine affects synthetic glues, but it doesn't worry hide glues, it seems, so check on that aspect before you use it.

Type "burr veneers, flattening" into your favourite search engine & you'll get a heap of hits - at least some of them look well-informed....

Cheers,

Thanks everyone for the sage advice.