Making Your Own Veneers

[Jeff Wright]

With the cost of hardwoods being what they are, I was wondering if many of you make your own veneers by bandsawing your solid stock. If so, to what thickness do you cut the veneers? Any good tips for making your own veneers? Or do you skip the resawing and simply buy ready made veneers?

[Thomas Knapp]

I'm just starting to explore that path myself. A couple of good sources of veneer are B&B Rare Woods http://www.wood-veneers.com/index1.htm and Certainly Wood http://www.certainlywood.com/. It is hard to cut your own as thin as they do. That just makes it hard to mix both kinds. A thickness sander also helps making yoiur own. If you make your own just make than less than 1/8" thick and they should work well. The veneers from the past were thicker than todays and worked well. I'm not sure you will save that much money by using veneer. Fancy veneer can cost a good bit per square foot, but you can do things that are hard to do with solid wood. Things like book and radial matches, marquetry, using burl which may not have had enough strength as solid wood. MDF seems to be the choice now for core material. Those that have more knowledge than I do, like it for its consistency and stability. Paul Schurch has a coupe of good DVD's available. Explore his website he does some nice work. http://www.schurchwoodwork.com/index.html This picture is my first attempt at Marquetry.

[Toney Robertson]

Thomas,

That is one nice bird. Great work.

How long did that take?

Any insight on technique?

Toney

[Jeff Wright]

This picture is my first attempt at Marquetry.

Nice work!

Regarding veneer thicknesses, I thought if I were to resaw to thicknesses of 3/16 or so, then I could dress it up once glued to the substrate on my 16-inch planer and jointer. Am I being naive to think that is possible?

[Peter Quinn]

I haven't tackled any major veneer projects but have been praticing setting up my bandsaw and cutting samples from test pieces. Its my understanding the 3/16" is about the upper limit in thickness which allows wood to behave like a veneer (limited movement) and not like solid wood. I cannot cut veneer as thin as comercially made stuff nor do I want to, but with my 14" band saw and drum sander I can consistently achieve 3/64"-1/16", sometimes thinner.

I watched more experienced guys at work apply veneer to curved substrates made up of italian bending plywood layers, poplar I think. They applied shop made mahogany veneers @ 3/32", just thin enough to not spring back and be able to form the required radius. They used traditional cauls and clamps (lots and lots of clamps).

Remember to apply veneer to both sides of a substrate to keep tension in equilibrium.

[matthew Roberts]

I made some veneers from spalted maple for a table I am working on. I just set up a shop made fence to accommodate the the drift in the blade. I cut them oversize and then used the surface planer to get them all to thickness.

[Jay Jolliffe]

What glue would you use for shop made veneer? I used tight bond with bad result.The thinnest that I've made so far has been .040" using a drum sander after I resawed it.

[Joe Chritz]

I am just getting started with shop sawn veneers but I am shooting to cut at 1/8" then dress to a bit less.

Even a moderately tuned BS can turn out veneer like that pretty easy.

This is strictly an educated guess on my part but once the wood gets over 1/32 I doubt there is any benefit to thicker veneers except maybe ease of handling.

Joe

[David DeCristoforo]

"I thought if I were to resaw to thicknesses of 3/16 or so, then I could dress it up once glued to the substrate on my 16-inch planer and jointer. Am I being naive to think that is possible?"

Absolutely not. As long as your BS is able to cut clean, flat sheets, this is completely within the realm of possibility. In doing this, you open up a whole world of grain and figure matching potential. "Sawn" veneers are much better than the thin stuff that comes in "sheets" or "leaves". It looks, works, feels and finishes much more like solid wood. Just remember to obey (you must obey!) the "rules" that apply to all veneer work, the most important of which is to keep your panels in balance. What is done to one side must be done on the other.

Have fun?
Dakuni Yosoforomoro

[Will Blick]

The rule of thumb, keep final veneer thickness 1/16" or thinner, otherwise, the veneer will act like wood and possibly separate from the substrate.

I too am considering doing more of my own veneering. But only for special projects where I want a certain look. In some cases, I prefer the consistency in appearance of a rotary cut veneer.... Other figured woods lend themselves to more attractive appearance when book-matched, something not possible by rotary cut veneers. So IMO, its important to pay attention to the look you want first, then consider how to get to the end result.

[John Timberlake]

I have cut my own veneers for a number of projects. The biggest was a dining table for my daughter. Cut piece that were about 8"x 20" from a 2" think piece of figured walnut using my Jet 14" bandsaw with riser block. I cut them to about 3/16" and then cleaned them up after gluing. Now I a Performax 16" drum sand, so I usually get the veneer down to about 1/16" or so before using. Also do the same for smaller pieces that I use for marquetry. Just make sure the bandsaw has a sharp blade (I use 1/2" x 4TPI) and is set up well with a good fence.

[David DeCristoforo]

"...keep final veneer thickness 1/16"..."

"... I usually get the veneer down to about 1/16" or so..."

Well, I think a sixteenth is stepping on it a bit hard. Krenov and his army of acolytes, consistently use sawn veneers of 1/8 to 3/16 in thickness without issue. I do think that 3/16 is pretty much the max thickness you would want to use. I have made a million chessboards and, for a while I was using a laminated construction with 1/4" thick squares. These did, indeed, cause problems with wood movement. But as long as I stayed between 1/8 and 3/16" in thickness, everything stayed put.

DeMatasoro Yovid

[jim oakes]

With the cost of hardwoods being what they are, I was wondering if many of you make your own veneers by bandsawing your solid stock. If so, to what thickness do you cut the veneers? Any good tips for making your own veneers? Or do you skip the resawing and simply buy ready made veneers?

I've been thinking about this: When it comes to cost it's way cheaper to buy bookmatched plywood. I just priced bookmatched Walnut 3/4" plywood and it's cheaper than solid 4/4 Walnut. Then figure the cost of the substrate,good bandsaw blades and sandpaper and even if your labor is free sawn veneers will be way more expensive.

With bookmatched plywood you can see the grain, if the figure is not right don't buy that sheet. The downside now days is the veneers are getting so thin you can see the glue through the veneer on some species (oak is the worst).

With shop sawn you don't really see the results until you've done lots of work. You will want allow a bit of waste or a "defect" factor.
I would increase that defect factor if your counting on running 3/16 or thinner through a planer.

My reason to get into sawn veneer more? IT'S FUN! It's really satisfying to slice wood open and see the bookmatch. I do have some nice planks I got at a bargain price, so that helps justify spending about $3,000 on a bandsaw and blades, plus maybe a sander, cyclone, veneer press, bigger shop and (whew) I better check the 220 volt capacity of my shop. This could be expensive fun!

[Peter Quinn]

A few things:

I remember seeing DJ Marks using a glue sizing on commercial veneer to stabilize and flatten it on Woodworks. He basically moistened one side with watered down yellow glue (it was walnut thin like paper) then pressed it between sheets of MDF with weight on top for a few days to get it flat in preparation for use. I may be missing a few details here as I lost the episode and my memory isn't what it used to be.

I've been browsing an old Tage Frid article in FWW where he was gluing thick sawn veneers (3/16") to a solid wood substrate for a table top then carving the edges and radiusing them for a cool effect. Seems they used wood substrates before plywood to good effect. The process was way more technical than I can recount here, but might be worth a search for some.

I'm told the balancing veneer on the blind side of a piece is not usually made using the same figured material as the show piece and often not even the same species. I think using the same thickness and relative density is the critical factor there.

[Peter Quinn]

Also Berkshire Veneers (who happens to be drivable from my location) carries figured woods in sequenced flitches that are plain sawn and can be book matched as neccessary. I'm sure other regional speciality veneer companies offer similar products if shop sawn is not an option.