Cutting veneers on a band saw.
Elisha44
| Posted in Jigs, Fixtures, Tips & Tricks on
Hi there, I’m a student completing her DT a-level and I’m doing my project on designing and making an tool/jig that will assist in the easy making of veneers and boards on a band saw. I was wondering if you have any existing products that help assist in this area, or if you have any knowledge on ways and methods to complete this process easily, including the kerf in the measurements, meaning you don’t have to re-measure every time.
Thank you for your time.
Replies
I don't do this much, but cutting veneer is pretty easy -you just set up a tall fence on the saw.
The process is usually to get one face flat, run it against the fence then repeat both processes.
Usually you will want a nice flat face as the sawn face can be uneven.
Over time, the unevenness can make it hard to get veneers a consistent thickness.
You might be able to design a system whereby you only have to joint once, and you use this as a reference face, moving the fence instead, but this has disadvantages -
1. Both sides of all the veneers will be sawn faces and may need to be sanded more.
2. More of the blade is further from the fence, increasing opportunity for injury.
The advantages:
1. There is no risk of cumulative error as the reference face is always the same.
2. Faster as no running between saw and jointer.
3. Lower risk as time consuming activities that are rushed are higher risk for injury
4. If the work is well supported in a jig, there is less opportunity for wobble, which can lead to waste.
5. It may be safer to cut the last couple of slices.
Hope this helps. Best of luck.
If you had a bandsaw that was all tuned up for resawing and a fence you trusted...
A fixture that clamps to the fence rail with a spacer or flip-stop could work. With the stop/spacer in place and the face of the wood touching the blade, put the jig on the rail and clamp it butted to the fence, remove the spacer, slide the fence against the jig and make a test cut.
Adjust the thickness of the spacer until your offcut is the thickness you want... Then:
1: butt the fixture with the spacer in place to the fence and clamp it to the rail.
2: remove the spacer / flip the stop
3: slide the fence over to the fixture, make a cut, repeat from #1.
Your veneer will have sawmarks on both sides, but it should do the job without resorting to math or rulers.
Of course just setting up your bandsaw and running cut after cut against the fence will give you the same result, also without math or rulers, and with the option to joint a face between passes.
Good luck with your project!
Wow, thank you much for your helpful response!!! I appreciate it very much. As an 18 year old girl, I'm struggling to understand some areas of this solution, do you happen to have a sketch, video or any websites that you know would help me understand this better.
Thank you very much for your time! - Elisha.
Hi Elisha, No, no videos or photos, I made that up as I wrote it while thinking about your question... I'll be in the shop over the weekend, I'll see if I can mock something up. You should take the description to your school shop and try to work through it. It might make more sense standing in front of a bandsaw.
Veneer jigs are designed to help you cut veneers to the desired width and thickness. They typically consist of a frame with a fence that is adjustable to the desired width. The veneer is then placed on the fence and cut to the desired thickness using the band saw. Also I use veneer tape.
What was answered is true, I bandsaw veneers also using the fence and depending on the veneer thickness and the need or not to have a planed surface will cut the veneer between the fence and the blade or away from the fence. But if I read you correctly, your task is to design a fixture to help in the process, as most things it has already been done and marketed under the name accu-slice and replaces the fence with a carriage that slides the wood across the blade and has micro-adjustment to set the veneer thickness between passes.
I cut veneer a lot, and just set the fence for the thickness I want. The piece against the fence is the veneer, so there is no need to reset the fence. I don't joint the board after each pass. I drum sand the veneer at the end.
I've looked at the accu-slice, and it's intriguing. But it only handles fairly short lengths, and I don't care for having to double-sided tape the stock to the carriage.
There is also a powered for the bandsaw that makes getting consistent veneer.
Derek Cohen has a good fence for resawing veneer on his website: https://www.inthewoodshop.com/Powered%20Tools%20and%20Machinery/ResawingOnTheBandsaw.html
Good idea to stop the fence at the blade so if the wood wants to curve when resawn, it does it without affecting the cut.
At the risk of being simplistic, I get excellent results using a tall fence (my Grizzly bandsaw came with a tall fence), a Bow Guide Pro ahead of the blade and a double tall Bow Feather Pro on the outfeed side of the blade. I get no drift. Of course the board is S4S and a planed side must go against the fence. After the first cut, I put the remaining planed side against the fence for the second cut. What to do with the remaining board with two sawn sides? I joint one side and then use the power planer to flatten the opposite side. Sure, it wastes wood but I've found no better solution. For the sawn faces of the veneer pieces, I sand with a random orbital to the point that the face is good for glue up.