Needed to use the bandsaw feed assist - which I had described fabricating in other threads. That meant I had to actually finish it to make it usable. So I quickly assembled a mockup of the base out of plywood. The idea was that using the mockup would expose some of the limitations and provide insights into how to make it better before committing to welding up in steel.
All worked as planned. First of all the feed assist works fantastically well and helps produce a very consistent veneer with minimal pressure on the wood being cut. As expected, the in-out adjustment turns out to be critical and also hard to adjust with the clamps. So one idea is that when fabbed up in steel, slots wwith kipp levers would allow quick adjustment to take up the slack created by cutting off a veneer. A more sophisticated option would be to replace the springs with pneumatics that would automatically adjust. I had considered that approach but felt it would overly complicate the project.
I'm open to ideas from the membership on what the final bracket might look like.
The wood is lacewood and I cut six veneers out of a single board. Shown pieces are 10-1/2" wide by 22" long and about 6/64" - 3/32" thick. Expectation is that when glued both sides to the 5/8" panel, the final thickness will be 3/4" following sanding. I cut using a 1" Lenox Woodmaster which leaves a reasonable finish, but I did run the board through the wide belt after each pass.
