Boards cupping with glue-up

[Bruce Mack]

The surface looks good and the board is flat after scraping and placement of oak strips to fill the 2 channels. As you can see I have varying gaps as wide as 1/2 mm. They are unacceptable. I want them to be uniform and no wider than 1 mm. if possible - shadow lines. I can't rout these. My tired brain says I can buy a cheap straight edge (which I don't have) and clamp it along the line, then score with a marking knife or a wide chisel.
I'll fill this with black CA glue to make a nice uniform accent line. Does anyone see alternative ways of doing this?

[Bruce Mack]

I could post only the picture showing the best segment of inlay. Here is the worst.

[Bruce Mack]

No method I tried worked so I removed the oak inlay and replaced it with cherry. There is still a glue line, perhaps more acceptable adjacent to the darker wood. I'll have to decide whether shellac and Tru-Oil or some other finish. I need to make a frame for the serving tray and would like to try ebonizing it with India ink. I have a quart bottle and I'm armed with a couple of YouTube videos. Of course I'll do samples before proceeding. I'd like not to use oak, as open pores would be a problem. Has anyone done ebonizing with ink or dye? Were you satisfied?

[William Fretwell]

Lee’s last paragraph is so true, what you do to one side you must do to the other, wetting the wood face would have helped, at least short term.

At this point you have doubled the joint lines, torn up the bookmatch, added more wood underneath and now want to route something?

It seems that using a little more oak at the outset, forgetting Baltic birch, would have been so much better.

[Bruce Mack]

Lee’s last paragraph is so true, what you do to one side you must do to the other, wetting the wood face would have helped, at least short term.

At this point you have doubled the joint lines, torn up the bookmatch, added more wood underneath and now want to route something?

It seems that using a little more oak at the outset, forgetting Baltic birch, would have been so much better.

This was my first attempt at veneering, William. I made a lot of errors and I tried to rectify them. Stubbornly I stayed with the original panel and it is now quite flat. I think it will look very good even with the discontinuity when lightly stained and surrounded with an ebonized cherry frame. In this case I think the misadventure turns out to have been a positive experience for me.

[Bruce Mack]

Every critique was right. Too thick veneer and improper technique. I'll recount the end. As I scraped the board I saw outward bulging of the cherry strip(s). They had thinned out so much that just finger pressure could deform them. I removed them and saw 2 "salvage" options. I could redo the inlays or I could pour amber colored epoxy into the channels and clamp the board flat while it set. This would assure that the board would remain flat and not deform with humidity changes. I chose epoxy and colored it nicely with a few drops of TransTint. It looked great when I mixed it but never set, leaving a sticky mess. I'm sure that I correctly maintained the 2:1 ratio of this System 3 product which I had successfully used just a couple of months before, so I think that the color additive was the cause. I had not made a test batch and this failure is entirely on me. I put a new blade on the bandsaw and I'll try to cut 1/16" veneer and apply it to both sides of the 3/8" baltic birch before the hand scraping and sanding. I fully expect failure again but I'm reconciled to it. Enjoy the photo.rsz_a80d692d-96cb-4609-bfe8-fa79a5427b5d_1_105_c.jpg

[Ted Martens]

Bruce, I've used this product before, and was very happy with the results: https://toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/LW-AMIS.XX
It was on white oak, the appearance was striking when finished (Watco finish on that one). They have it in both alcohol and water based formula.

[Bruce Mack]

Thanks, Ted. That's good information.

[Richard Hutchings]

Wow, this has been a learning experience, for me and you. I think I'll avoid any such thing and stick with solid lumber.

[Bruce Mack]

Wow, this has been a learning experience, for me and you. I think I'll avoid any such thing and stick with solid lumber.

It is funny to me now, Richard. Unknowingly, I tried to re-invent a process that is ages old. There is a line from Stephen Leacock, "He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions."

[Christopher L Everett]

A furniture restoration trick I've seen with veneers is to apply PVA glue to the veneer and the substrate, let it dry, and then use an iron to melt the glue and get the bond. I don't know how well that would work on 3/32" thick veneers.

[Bruce Mack]

A furniture restoration trick I've seen with veneers is to apply PVA glue to the veneer and the substrate, let it dry, and then use an iron to melt the glue and get the bond. I don't know how well that would work on 3/32" thick veneers.

You are right. 3/32 is too thick and also not necessary as I can scrape and sand thinner veneer safely. I just tried dry PVA with a self-cut piece of softwood veneer. It has held well at the edges and did not scorch with brown paper between the iron and the veneer. My bandsaw blade is a 3 tpi Olson which leaves small serrations but when i do this "for real" I will face joint before each cut so as to glue smooth to smooth surfaces. I hope the technique works for me, as wet clamping and cauls require more finesse than I can muster and I don't want to try/buy vacuum bagging for a one time project.

[Jim Koepke]

My bandsaw blade is a 3 tpi Olson which leaves small serrations but when i do this "for real" I will face joint before each cut so as to glue smooth to smooth surfaces.

There are two tricks that have helped me reduce this problem.

One is a zero clearance bandsaw insert. Search term > zero clearance bandsaw insert < and you will find a lot of sources.

Second is some bandsaw blades have too much set, imo. With two metal plates in my vise the blade is carefully fed between the plates and is clamped on a few inches at a time to decrease the set.

These both help even with a coarser blade.

jtk

[Bruce Mack]

This has been going on for more than a year and a half. The project went off the rails because I didn't understand veneering, and initially used way too thick boards as veneer. Then, using bandsawn and hand-scraped 1/16" oak veneer, I tried the iron-on method with PVA glue. Disaster. The tray now is edge-glued 9 mm boards, again sawn from my own stock, ebonized with India ink, and glossed with Tru-Oil. The frame is cherry with a shellac finish. Soon I'll be driving to Alexandria, MN to hand it over. I have loved every minute of this project because it was done for dear friends.

[Jim Koepke]

Looks great Bruce.

jtk