edge gluing veneer

[daniel skolnick]

I am making bent veneer wedding bands for my fiancee and myself. Naturally she wants two types of wood with mother of pearl inlay. I was thinking of using bent veneer and edge gluing the strips together before putting them in water, microwaving them, pre-wrapping them and letting them dry before doing the final glue up.

Is this a good idea? Will the glue hold through the water and microwave process? If not, can anyone suggest a better way? This purpleheart ring is similar to what I want to do, except there will be a band of mother of pearl inlay in the middle and an Amethyst stone which I have no idea how I am going to attach. .


purple-heart-wood-ring.jpg
Thanks for your help,
Daniel

[Jamie Buxton]

I think that edge-gluing thin veneer and then soaking it in water is likely to fail.

I've thought about making wood rings before, and have always been concerned about the strength issue. Rings really get a lot of abuse. They get squeezed, they get wet, and so on. It'd be a big bummer to make a wedding ring, and have it break in a few months. Bad omens and all that. However I've just noticed a really interesting approach. Look at this site --http://www.bangleguy.com/RIng_Supplies.html He offers parts you can use to make a ring which is structurally metal, but has the beauty of wood. Look around the site. He has pretty thorough instructions about how to use his stuff.

[Wayne Lomman]

This takes the cake for trickiest design of the year! You could consider cutting veneer rings and stacking them to make essentially a ply blank to then finish machining. This allows bands of different species. I do like Jamie's point about using a metal backbone, though. I can't wait to see the finished product. Cheers

[Yonak Hawkins]

daniel, that's a very nice looking ring. My opinion is that such jewelry is made from minerals for a reason. They are known to last. If you are bent on making wooden rings, you may want to decide to commit to making new rings on your anniversary every year.

[tim walker]

So why not make it from layers of your required wood and then turn it on a small lathe?

[Mike Wilkins]

Woodturning Jewelry by Hilary Bowen $22.95 from Barnes and Noble.