How to edge glue 3/16" solid wood veneer?

[Ronald Kot]

Jamie, about veneer tape
you said
"My experience with masking tape in a vacuum press is bad. The adhesive is semi-liquid, and the press' pressure squeezes it into the pores of the wood. It does not peel off the wood cleanly, like it does in normal usage. The adhesive gums up a scraper or a sander. Veneer tape works much better. It can be removed with a scraper or a sander."

I just saw the blue 3m tape i am considering using here:
Joe Woodworker
http://www.veneersupplies.com/catego...%26__Supplies/

where they say about it:
For complicated and fussy veneer seams, you can't beat this 3M painters tape. I use this 3/4" wide clean release tape to hold the underside of two veneers together while I prepare the regular veneer tape for the face side. After the brown tape starts to set, I remove the blue tape and allow the veneers to dry before placing it in the vacuum press.
While it is undeniably expensive, 60 yards (one roll) goes a long, long way. You can also find this tape in the paint aisle of your local hardware store.


They do say

"the blue tape goes on the back of the veneer."
and then they put regular tape on the front. The back side is defined as the side you want to glue to the substrate.



Whole process discussed here:
http://www.joewoodworker.com/veneering/veneertaping.htm


What I realize reading this, is that they DO NOT edge glue at all. At least they never mention it. What they do is blue tape on glue side; veneer tape on top side, moisten and let it pull pieces together; remove blue tape from underneath; glue on substrate; veneer on top and press. Ahhhh, so thats what blue tape is for!


This is an alternate method to the u tube video that I posted in my 2nd post above, and so much easier.

[Ronald Kot]

Ron,

......................At the school students always edge glued their veneers. If the veneer tended towards the thicker end of the spectrum (3/32") we would use a system of wedges, stops and a torsion box to glue up the veneer sheet. At the thinner end (1/16" or less) we would use blue masking tape as you describe.

Ted, what is the purpose of edge gluing?

What is the down side of not edge gluing if one follows the procedure here where I cant see that they edge glue at all:
http://www.joewoodworker.com/veneering/veneertaping.htm

I would think as someone else observed that if the tape holds the pieces together ok, then once pressed the glue on the flat will hold the edges together better than the edge glue ever would???

To edge glue or not to edge glue....has become the central question for me. And here I started this thread akking how to edge glue, now It seems unnecessary and for me hard to do as I do not have the a torsion box to keep the glue up flat to avoid voids....problematic.

Thanks for your perspective!

[Al Navas]

You may want to read the David Marks veneer page. It applies to shop-sawn veneers.

I believe that using veneer tape only, applies to the commercial veneers that are simply too thin to edge glue - the joewoodworker page shows commercial veneers, not shop-sawn veneers. As I showed in my earlier post, it is possible and desirable to edge glue shop-sawn veneers, as these are at least 2X and up to 3X thicker than commercial veneers.


Al

[Chris Padilla]

Check out my Tansu thread.

I shop cut 3/32" walnut veneers using both my Lenox Trimaster and my Lenox Diemaster2 blades. I do have a Lenox Woodmaster CT but I did not like it at all for cutting veneers as I felt it left too rough a surface. I see Jamie has a different experience with his Lenox Woodmaster CT.

I then fiddled with a craigslist-found Delta 18/36 drum sander for an entire Saturday to dial it in and it produced wonderful 1/16" sanded veneers. Sanding ~20 sheets of veneer will go down in my woodworking history as probably the most mind-numbing process I've ever done but the results were nothing short of fantastic!

If you read my thread, I wrestled a bit with the edge-gluing. After a couple trials of NOT edge-gluing, I went this route. I used a waterless tape that veneersupplies.com carries as well as their Better Bonds glue. It dries very hard...hard enough to slice open careless hands and fingers!!

The KEY is edge-jointing to get a nearly invisible line. There are various methods to jointing veneers to get a good, tight joint. I made a carrier sled slightly longer than my veneers and clamped the veneers between it and ran the whole thing over my jointer.

Then I lightly clamped the veneers together and used bricks and general weight to keep things from bowing up as I veneer-taped the joints. I was rewarded with very nice, tight joints after pressing the veneers in a vacuum bag. Often, the veneer glue I was using would get sucked up through the joint but not always. I looked at that as a sign that I didn't get them tight enough or the tape slipped or I didn't joint them well enough BUT, the joint looked great. I used a chocolate-colored glue so it blended well with the walnut.

[Ted Wong]

Ron whenever I use tape I always use 3m blue tape. Have never had a problem with residue or pulling out fiber. I have used other masking tapes and have had the problems described. I'm not a huge fan of veneer tape unless I'm doing marquetry, just feel it's a bit tedious for gluing up veneer leaves. Using any old tape on commercial veneer (1/40" or less) can be problematic but on shop sawn veneers you have the additional thickness that allows you to remedy any problems with cheap tape.

[Ted Wong]

I like edge gluing my veneers because for me its another layer of protection against the joint opening up should there be differential movement between the veneer and substrate occur. At the same time I say that with the caveat that wood does what it wants to. And I have had veneered surfaces that I meticulously edge glued prior to laminating to the substrate eventually open up (I used lumber core for substrate). Maybe on a flat surface it doesn't matter so much whether you glue the joints first, I can't say with certainty whether it is better or not, its just one of those things I do out of habit because I was taught that way and have been too lazy to experiment other methods. On the other hand I've veneered a lot of curved panels and in those cases I think edge gluing is a requisite to maintain tight joints.

[Al Navas]

...To edge glue or not to edge glue....has become the central question for me...

Just following up, Ronald. Have you had a chance to it out, with and without edge-gluing? Just wondering - no pressure...

Al

[Ronald Kot]

to edge glue or not to....I will. ive cut my veneer to 3/16 thickness. Each flitch is bandsaw rough on one side, jointer planed smooth on the other. I'll edge glue up the veneer panels, glue those to substrate smooth side down, press, then thickness sand off 1/16 to remove the bandsaw marks and get the final veneer thickness down to 2/16, which is .125". Or maybe a little slightly thinner, around .1 for stability.

Will be interesting to see how the edge gluing goes. I need to make up a flat surface to do the glue up on, so Im thinking of using 1" OR 3/4 MDF. I should really build a torsion box, one the right size for a vacuum press I hope to get later sometime. Then this projects supports a later project down the road.

[Al Navas]

... I should really build a torsion box, one the right size for a vacuum press I hope to get later sometime. Then this projects supports a later project down the road.

Ronald,

Good! I wish you success - I believe it will work great!

I don't believe you need a torsion box to press veneers with a vacuum press. All I use is an MDF platen, with grooves that crisscross to allow the exit of air from the bag as you turn on the pump. The platen goes on the bottom, with the grooves facing the project; the project lays on the platen; and the whole thing is topped off an MDF top caul, to distribute the pressure evenly - I now make the bottom platen closer and slightly larger than the project (this one was too large for the project I was gluing up):



I cover the entire "sandwich" with an electric blanket, and also use an outdoor "thermometer" to ensure I can keep it all above 70°F under the blanket. It was late February and still cold in NW Missouri - it is much cheaper to run the blanket than to keep the entire shop above 70°F when it is -10°F outside.

After success with the veneer edge-to-edge glue-up, you want to remove the blue tape from the back of the veneers, as you don't want those tape strips when you glue the veneer to the substrate.

Al