Hi All
My wife has fallen in love with a veneered armoire that she saw in a catalog. Even though the skills are over my head, I’m willing to give it a try. I’m pretty sure I can handle the joinery but I certainly have never done any veneer work. Since my shop space is quite limited, I thought I might take a stab at hammer veneering with hot hide glue. I have read a bunch of articles which make it sound relatively simple. Is it? Just how bad does hide glue smell? Is there a better method without a major investment? This armoire would have roughly 72″ x 22″ panels on the sides with similar sized doors. Veneer would be Santos Rosewood.
Thanks!
Replies
David,
For the small shop doing one of a kind work, there is no better way to apply veneer than by hammer veneering.
Your project is a large and ambitious one, so I would try some small panels with inexpensive wood first and then one with the actual species of veneer you plan on using, before you proceed to your armoire. Some species are more difficult than others to hammer veneer. I've had the most trouble with birdseye maple and poplar, which I believe may be due to these having been rotary cut.
There is one step that will save a lot of frustration, and that is to apply a thinned down coat of glue to the substrate the day before you veneer.
While no one is going to market a hide glue perfume any time soon, it does not smell that bad. If left too long in the pot in warm weather it is a nose breaker, smelling just like what it is, a dead animal.
Rob Millard
http://www.americanfederalperiod.com
Thanks for the encouragement Rob. I'm going to hunt up a glue pot and some glue this week in order to start practicing. Thanks also for the advice about the substrate. That would have taken some time to figure out, if I ever did.
David B
Hello Davidbrum,
I just have finished 35 sqm or 385sqfoot of veneering, 2 cabinets 1 desk and a table.
After trying to hand veneering the long lengths 8' x 1.5' I changed to pressing with F clamps, cauls using 20mm (3/4") ply top and bottom and 1-mm thick window PVC.
By heating everything with electric blankets during the day( it is now winter here in New Zealand and cold) 4 cheap single blankets where enough, It worked very well but took most evenings.
I had more problems to keep work out how to make the seams straight for the veneering.
Dampening the veneer first with Placing heavy paper between every sheet of veneer clamping it flat and leaving that for 4 days made the veneer nice flat.
I made one 8' straight edge for plaining the joint after the sheets are cut to width, my Speirs plane was very good it takes only small shaving. I made with the straight edge a shooting board. and use only paper tape for jointing other tape is VERY hard to take of the veneer after gluing to take the tape of just wet it and try when it is wet enough to lift of.
Try it out first on a bottom the first try did not go vert well for me but that gives u the chance also to try repairing it.
Cheerio Bernhard.
Thanks Cheerio. I was just wondering if an electric blanket would work for large panels. I read that a household iron helps as well.
I also read about the importance of bona fide veneer tape. Better add that to the shopping list.
I will try a shooting board, although I sort of got the impression that joints are cut by slightly overlapping the veneer sheets and cutting through both at once. I guess that's where the practice comes in.
David B
Hi there,
I just finished a veneering project for a condo reno (9 panels to insert in sliding doors). TO get the straight edge for jointing the veneer I sandwiched the veneer between 2 6x48 inch strips of 3/4 in laminate. With the edge of the veneer just proud of the lower strip, and the top strip set just a little back I ran a template by with my router down the length. (I attached sand paper to the mating edges of the laminate strips to avoid slippage) By taking a climbing cut I achieved straight edges every time, very quickly.
In order to avoid having to remove the veneer tape (and glue) I but the back on the back side. The tape is very thin and did not leave any impression on the good side (I use a vacuum press so had 1700 lb/sq ft of clamping pressure).
There's really no simpler way to veneer. I always see the hassles people go through with cauls and clamsp, or forms or whatever for bags etc. I can't see the point.
A few things I've learned is use a paint brush to spread lots of glue on a big project. Take a card scraper without a burr on it to clean of the glue while it tacks up. Dont' scrape like you would but squeegee(sp?) the excess glue off.
Don't worry about jointing the edges for the seem. Just lay one piece down and let it dry for about 20 min. Then lay the next piece down and overlap them by about 1/4". Use a straight edge and cut down the center of the overlap, and get rid of the excess. You can use and iron or or heated hammer to glue the the seam down.
A couple of tips I learned from Steve Latta is make your own hammer with a heavy brass head like 1/4" thick. Then take a pressure activated coffee cup warmer and put the head on that. The heat from the head will heat the glue and make it work easier.
Steve also uses a plane hammer lee valley sells that is made of brass, he heats on the warmer and uses it for spot reheating of glue. It works great!
Just like anything practice and you like it!
Great advice! Those pearls of wisdom are greatly appreciated. As time goes by, I find that figuring skills out by myself loses it's appeal.
Wondering?? Are you talking about hide glue technique or some other glue. Waiting for it to tack??? I too have used hide glue and hammer veneering techniques. After years of working different woods and glues I have some tricks. In my view, starting a new guy out on large panels, with expensive veneer, hide glue pot and no training is a recipe for .... disappointment. There's bound to be somebody near by with a veneer vacuum bag that will let you try it out. After you do some veneering with the press, I doubt you will think of hammer veneering large pieces again. Joewoodworker.com has some nice kits that you can make and use with your compressor if you don't want to pay for a vacuum pump. The press system takes up very little space, it offers a very high success rate and its not that big of an investment if you're planning to build a large piece out of rosewood. Just one more consideration.
Thanks for the advice. I will check out the vacuum bags. While I'm really intrigued by the idea of hammer veneering, I want to limit my suffering to my day job.
I was refering to hide glue hammering. And the reasons you list for bagging are the exact reason why I would say to hammer. The only advantage of a bag is that you can walk away.
When hide glue hammering the entire process is 100% reversable. With a large panel you just thin the glue a little more and work a litte faster. If the veneer cracks you can slide it back together. If it tacks to soon you can heat it with a heat gun. While the glue is tacky you can move the veneer around.
One big advantage of hide glue is that once hammered down the surface tension of the water in the glue will hold the veneer in place. so no clamps or culls needed.
I do agree though you don't want to practice on your finished panel. You want to practice with some cheap wood and cheap veneer.
Every skill takes time to learn, I have yet to see anything done in a wood shop that is as difficult as learning to eat with a knife and fork. So if you can eat with a fork there is no woodworking task you can't do.
Hey Talma,
I have been using a vacuum press for some time now and it works well for me. I no longer build frames but rather use a piece of plastic mesh on the top of the project (joewoodworker.com product) and a sheet of laminate covered particle board on the bottom). All projects regardless of size slide in the bag, are covered by the mesh and away we go.However, the real point of my note is to ask if you think hide glue is the answer to a recent problem I have been given. After making a number of door panels for a client I have been asked to veneer the inside of his condo door to match. I have not yet got all the details but he describes the door as being covered with laminate. There is no way I want to try and get a door into a vacuum bag and I am really ignorant about whether I can get an adhesive that will glue the veneer to what is presumable a pre-finished surface.
Any thoughts?
/ Al
That's a tough one to answer. But I think if the door has wood veneer on top of it, you could strip the finish and veneer over the existing finish. Hide glue will stick to anything yellow glue will stick to.
But I think your situation provides the perfect opportunity to offer to build a new door for your client that would match. Or maybe even retrofit the inside of the door with matching panels on the inside. (how to do that would be a topic for another thread).
Thanks for taking the trouble to answer my question.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled