Hammer veneering a chessboard?

[David B. Morris]

I'm a longtime lurker and beneficiary of this marvelous community. It has been a gift as I resume woodworking after a decades-long hiatus. I'm hoping you can help me with a veneering question.

I plan on making a veneered chessboard in the familiar way alternating strips taped together, then cross cut, then alternated and taped again, etc., glued onto an MDF substrate with balancer on the other side. But I don't have a vacuum press and would prefer to avoid clamps and cauls--and I'd like to get acquainted with hammer veneering and hide glue for the Neanderthalic high it would no doubt generate.

But can you hammer-veneer a taped up assembly like a chessboard, where the tape (a lot of tape) is on the show side? Should I use a laminate roller instead, or just forget hide-glue for this application altogether? I've looked at other veneering threads here and the issue is touched on briefly, but I'd like to focus on this particular question.

Assuming the above is indeed a no no, I would use clamps and cauls. Glue recommendations for this technique are many and varied. My main concern here would be glue residue (another reason I'd prefer to go the hide-glue route). Your thoughts?

Many thanks.

[Jim Koepke]

David,

Welcome to the Creek.

My knowledge of veneering is zip. Just watched an episode of the 'WoodSmith Shop' where they did some veneering on a Demilune table. They used rollers and a spray adhesive.

Hopefully someone with some knowledge will chime in.

jtk

[Mike Henderson]

You should be able to hammer veneer a taped up assembly. The biggest problem with hide glue is the same as other water based glues - when the veneer gets "wet" (depending on the type of veneer) it will expand. When you have two types of veneer, as you would with a checkerboard, you can have problems if one veneer expands more than the other.

When doing veneer with modern glues, I only put glue on the substrate. Then, I lay the veneer in place and get it into press (vacuum bag) really quick - before the veneer can absorb enough moisture to cause problems.

My recommendation is to put a couple of your pieces of veneer together, maybe just a few into a checkerboard pattern, and hammer veneer those to some scrap. That will give you an idea of how it will react.

And I assume you're going to have a glue pot with the hide glue heated, and not use some of the commercial "liquid hide glue" that comes in a bottle.

Mike

[And please do not use contact cement with raw wood veneer.]

[Ryan Baker]

It's probably doable, but it sounds like it would be pretty difficult to keep everything tightly in place. The "hammer" part may move the squares around. As Mike said, practice on some scrap first.

[John Vernier]

+1 on practicing with scrap first. Hammer veneering can be pretty efficient once you have a feel for it. Definitely use hot hide glue. The liquid hide glues don't tack up quickly, and that is the key thing - the hot glue "seizes up" and everything stays put. If you want to build a pattern with multiple elements you will probably find it best to glue one element in place, let the glue set up for a few minutes, then apply more hot glue and butt the next element up to the first. You don't want too many bits and pieces sliding around at one time - a sticky mess (In the old days it was routine to tack veneer elements down with special fine nails called veneer pins, which were pulled or sometimes snapped off flush after the veneer dried).

One thing you will find is that if you brush hot hide glue on one side of your veneer, the piece will curl immediately, and become very hard to manage. The trick is to brush glue on to both sides, and just ignore the fact that this makes everything sticky and disgusting. The glue on your "show" face helps to lubricate the hammer as you squeegee the air bubbles out from under the veneer, and once the glue is dried you can sand and scrape the surface clean easily enough.

My experience is that hammer veneering with modern thin veneers is pretty awful, but it can be done. It's much easier with thicker stuff, and if you can resaw your own veneers to 1/16" or 3/32", it will be a relative piece of cake.

[Christopher Charles]

Welcome David. Sounds like a cool project. Agree with all the advise above, particularly about the issue of thin veneer--what's your source? If you haven't found them already, W. Patrick Edwards is a great source for info on traditional veneering and Rob Millard has some good videos on his site (http://americanfederalperiod.com/woodshop.html). This is a classic parquetry question and might be covered in Roubo's "to make as perfectly as possible".

If you have thicker veneer and do some practice, doing several pieces at a time should be feasible, though the mdf may not behave well.

Please share your trials and tribulations.

Cheers,
C

[David B. Morris]

Thank you all for your advice. Yes, I was planning on using traditional hide-glue in a pot. My concern is hammering over all that tape. The entire board (essentially 64 squares of parquetry) would be taped up, so in effect it would be one piece. As such I don't think I need worry about individual pieces moving around as I hammer. My worry is about pressing and and smearing the glue over all that tape as I hammer. Wouldn't the water content of the glue simply lift the tape?

Thinness of the veneer is a good point. I was planning on using Macassar ebony and some form of maple (birdseye or curly) from Joe Woodworker/veneer supplies. As long as it's sawn or sliced and not rotary cut, I think curling will be minimum, but yes, practicing first is a good idea. Anyway, it's so cold now that I don't think I'll be tackling this until spring.

[Ryan Baker]

Your test runs will tell you (and hopefully us) whether the veneer tape will hold everything or not.

Try to heat up your pieces first. That will give you a little more working time with the hide glue. You will need to work pretty fast on something that size.

You might consider just cutting your own veneer squares. It wouldn't be very hard to slice off squares that size. Then you could make them suitably thick, hammer veneer them in place, and plane everything clean and even afterward.

[Mike Henderson]

I agree that hammer veneering is easier with shop sawn veneers. One additional hint is that if you have a traditional veneer hammer (all metal except for the handle), you can heat it by letting it sit in hot water. When you take it out to hammer veneer, the metal will be too hot to touch. Use a rag between your hand and the hammer. The heat of the hammer will help keep the glue soft while you press it.

Mike

[david charlesworth]

Pressing is a much safer method for taped up designs.

Personally I would not touch this with a bargepole.

Hammer veneering works much better for reasonable sized sheets.

Best wishes,
David

[David B. Morris]

Thank you again for the input. It looks like pressing between cauls is the way to go. I'll save my first hammer veneering foray for something easier. Any thoughts on which glue to use? Titebond Cold press Veneer looks intriguing. My concern is bleed through and the appearance of any cured glue that may show between the squares of the board. I probably will buy raw veneer (macassar ebony and curly maple) at a place like veneersupplies.com, so it will not be shop sawn and therefore thin.

[Mike Henderson]

You can use plain old white glue (Elmer's Glue All) if the board will not get wet. The advantage of white glue is that if you get some bleed through you can wash it off with water.

You'll need to learn how much glue to put on the substrate. Too little and you'll get bubbles where the veneer doesn't stick. Too much glue and you can get bubbles of glue under the veneer.

When you put it in press, put plastic or waxed paper between the veneer and the caul (meaning the flat plate that you put on top of the veneer to press it flat). Then, you may want to use the other kind of (curved) caul to get pressure in the middle of the flat caul.

Other good glues are urea formaldehyde (UF), Titebond cold press, UnibondOne, yellow glue, or epoxy. In the UF category, you have Unibond 800, Weldwood, and Pro-Glue. One problem with the powered UF glues is to get them mixed smooth. Without much problem, they can come out lumpy.

Mike