Veneering with yellow glue and (shhhhhh)-the family iron

[Bruce MANNING]

Hello - I am obsessing over my first attempt at veneering the door panels of a small cabinet I am building. The cabinet is cherry and I have acquired a nice crotch cherry veneer wide enough that I can bookmatch the two pieces I have, one piece to each door panel. The substrate will be quarter inch Baltic birch plywood. I have some plain cherry veneer for the backside of the panels. So I have done a lot or reading (Fine Woodworking, etc) but never having done this before I am still not exactly sure of the process I should use particularly as in its current state the crotch veneer is as wrinkled as my old Aunt Jenny's backside (I'm guessing here as I have not really seen it). Several things worry me such as (1) when I did a small test piece of the veneer for practice it curled up like a cannoli when the glue went on so I wonder when I do the big piece ( about 10" x 17") whether spritzing the show side with water would be a good idea before the glue and/or (2) should I lightly spray the crotch material with a 6-2-1 water, alcohol, glycerine mixture to soften the wrinkles before going to the glue, and if so how long before the glue would I do this? I have read everything from soaking and weighting down flat overnight to simply spraying a little on both sides and starting right away with the glue. So I am hoping somebody out there has done this before and can mentor me along a little on the process. While my test piece cannolied on me it ironed on nice and flat with a little fussing. I should mention the plain veneer for the backside is pretty flat and I don't envision a problem with it, although I imagine it will cannoli as well. Also, the plain veneer will have to be jointed and taped for each panel - so can I just use masking tape (will the heat of the iron on the tape transfer anything bad to the veneer?).

Any advice will be welcome.

Bruce

[Mike Henderson]

Veneering is a specialized skill that takes a fair amount of education and practice. Based on what you've posted above, there is a significant amount of things you need to learn - much, much more than I can tell you in a forum post. I would highly recommend you get some education from someone who is skilled in veneer work and do some simple projects first. Simple meaning some practice panels.

If you really want to go ahead, I'd recommend the book "Woodworker's Guide to Veneering and Inlay".

Mike

[Paul Schurch has a good DVD on veneering. Do a search on his name and you'll find his site and the DVD.]

[John Downey]

I've used the technique on plain sawn veneer, never tried crotch veneer. I may have also used Tightbond III, which is not a great choice for it. Been almost 15 years, so I don't remember well.

In short it works, but not superbly well IMHO. I guess the advantage of simple to do with no extra tools outweighs that. I think it works best with white glue if I remember correctly. The problem I had was one of bubbles, so it may have been technique problems in addition to the wrong glue for best results.

As far as I remember, curling that resulted from the glue wasn't a problem to iron out. Now whether wrinkles in crotchwood from drying will do so too... well, I just don't know. Those wrinkly crotch veneers always scared me off

[Chris Fournier]

I would practice on some plain veneer first. If you don't get it just right and you apply to much heat I think that the crotch piece will likely pull itself apart. I have used this technique in certain applications for years and it has its place. I would guarantee you that a cold pressing of this tricky veneer would be your best bet. Flatten then cold press.

[Quinn McCarthy]

Bruce,

Mike has some good advil.

I got this DVD http://www.amazon.com/Sauers-Working...productDetails What a great DVD. If you go to joewoodworker.com they have an article on different veneer glues and and what the benifits and drawbacks are. I used that glue and method once and after a year the veneer came up.

I usually use one of the better bond brand glues from veeeersupplie.com. That has worked way better.

Hope that helps.

Q

[John Nesmith]

I have done it with TBIII with very good success. I will be doing it again soon on a jewelry box. I plan to use this glue this time. Joe apparently can't ship it until it warms up because of risk of freezing.

[Thomas S Stockton]

I've used the iron technique using titebond 2 regular yellow glue and the glue marketed for this purpose. Titebond 2 works well, the marketed glue works a little better.
The biggest problem you are going to have is that when you have a joint and use an iron it is going to want to pop open because the heat of the iron is drying and shrinking the veneer.
I buy premade flatting solution it is way nicer than any I have made. I use my veneer press to flatten and dry it between sheets of newsprint.
Veneer is always going to turn into a potato if you apply glue to it, if I need to do this I tape it down to a scrap of melamine.
I use blue masking tape on the joints and it works really well, I let the veneer dry overnight before peeling it off and get minimal little slivers of veneer lifting up. If this happens I use a hair dryer to warm the tape as I peel it off.
10 x 17 isn't that big and I would be tempted to press it using two pieces of 3/4 melamine and clamps and cauls.
I also highly recommend www.joewoodworker.com the site has a ton of info on it, is a great resource and won't steer you wrong.
Good luck
Tom

[Peter Quinn]

I think the iron on technique is maybe better suited to curves than board flat surfaces, like a table apron or such. For the flat panel, I'd skip the iron and just make a platen and bowed cauls and do it old school, or get a vacuum bag. You probably want some softening/flattening solution involved to get the crotch to behave before glue up. If you go traditional clamping you can skip gluing the veneer and just wet out the substrate.

[Mike Henderson]

A bit off topic - an iron can be a very useful device in a shop, especially for ironing out dings in wood. All you need is a cheap iron, but you can often find an even cheaper iron at a place like Goodwill or the Salvation Army. That way you avoid spousal wrath.

Gluing difficult veneer by ironing has problems because the veneer will expand as you work it, which often leads to folds in the veneer. Much better to press it all at once with cauls or a vacuum bag.

Also, to join pieces of veneer, use veneer tape. It shrinks a small amount when it drys so it pulls joints tight and it comes off the pressed work with water. Blue tape does not shrink and becomes difficult to remove after it has been pressed.

Mike

[Keith Mathewson]

Watch this Youtube with Barry Lorimer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hhl9Sp9gVI. It takes some practice but not as much as it would appear. If you watch the whole thing listen for the part where he says he has worked in a cabinet shop since the mid 1980's where he was expected to veneer 5 dressers a day, thats 5 tops, 10 sides, 25 drawers plus the stiles and rails.

[Bruce MANNING]

Hello everyone - thanks for the feedback and thanks to Mike for the reference. I have ordered the book. After reading everyone's comments I decided to give it a go and here is a picture of how my first veneering attempt came out. I did decide to use the iron on yellow glue technique and it worked out well enough for this project. I dampened the cherry crotch veneer with a mixture of water-alcohol-glycerine (6-3-1) and flattened it in a press overnight between virgin newsprint (it did not completely flatten but it was greatly softened), then spritzed the back (it did suppress the extreme curl I had seen in the test) with the mixture and painted the other side with TitebondII, then painted the substrate (1/4" Baltic birch) also, let it all dry to the touch then ironed the two together (hot iron set to "cotton") lightly from the center out using a paper bag to protect the veneer surface. It went down without a hitch but literally as everything cooled and I watched one of the two panels developed a crack in the veneer that extended eventually to about 4" long. Very thin crack, undetectable unless you are looking for it. You know, this would not be acceptable if making a fine piece for somebody else but frankly the cherry crotch is so gnarley anyway it almost would look to someone who saw it like it was done deliberately to emphasize the crotchiness. I am going to leave it in. I did the other side with jointed flat sawn cherry veneer and as someone mentioned might happen the jointed edge did separate by a very, very even 1/32" top to bottom. As the commenter noted it is probably due to the drying of the veneer as it is applied. The finish masked this well enough.

I do not do much (any?) veneering so I might use this technique again on smaller panels as the need arises and with less gnarly materials. If doing it on jointed flat veneer, I would try using a veneer tape instead of the blue masking to see if the split at the seam could be avoided with a tape that shrinks a little when hot instead of expands. I think it is a viable alternative to expensive vacuum gear on smaller pieces.

thanks again everyone for the comments....

Bruce