veneering question - edging

[Kacey Zach]

I am in the process of making a lap desk. I figure it is a good first try for my new vacuum veneering setup. I plan to veneer some mdf with some bubinga veneer.

My question is what to do with the edges? my initial thought was to make a clamping fixture to glue some curly maple around it (maple will need to be cut in thin strips since the lap desk is quite curvy). So, now you see my dilemma: the lap desk is not square but curvy kinda like this:http://www.stacksandstacks.com/image/738.jpg
I purposely designed the curves so that I could go around the outside with some sort of clamping jig. Maybe there is an easier way.

Any comments/ideas?

[John Lucas]

Kacey,
If you dont know Vacuum Press Systems in Maine (http://vacupress.com/) , you should. Darryl Kiel, their president has mastered veneering -- all sorts. Their forum is great. Your question is a good one to post there. Darryl has made several videos - the most recent is on curved surfaces. He shows how to vacuum veneer a table top with rounded edges and wrapping the edges. I suggest you read the forum, order the video and call and ask Darryl. Say hello for me. We did three videos together. His on camera skills and veneering knowledge and my video expertese.

[Michael Pyron]

Rip the material to no more than 3/16" per strip (more likely 1/8" would be better according to the actual radii of the curves...curly maple tends to break because of the figuring). Then make an exact copy of the top you are making. I made a bar 5 years ago with a 13" radius on the stand that I had to run trim around the panels on the curve and what I did (and stupid me chose rather gnarly mahogany for the pieces) was to soak the strips in my bathtub over night and then clamped them to a form and let them dry...I then cut them to length by holding them to the work and manually marking the lengths for each strip of the molding and then glued and using a micro nailer put them in place very carefully...this would have been impossible (I know because I tried) had I not pre-bent the strips before trying to install them...

So, getting to the point, wet your pieces and them clamp them to your form one at a time and in some fashion allow for them to be long (it would probably help if you made your form a bit larger than reality to allow for this)...of course you will need to number the strips as you layer them on your form so as to not get confused, and to make the best possible effect you should rip them sequentially out of the same piece of wood and number them as you rip them (use water proof ink as pencil marks will wash away in the bathtub). You may also need to create an outside form so that you A: create a better curve and B: try and prevent the wood from blowing up as you force it into a bend. As you install them you may need to use a handsaw or a very sharp chisel/knife/whatever and cut them in place as you do the glue up. Also it would be structurally best if you stagger the joints a bit (and this will be accomplished by cutting the pieces extra long and cutting various amounts of either ends of the strips because of course you want to keep the grain aligned which will mean you will have to put marks indicating the center (or somesuch) of the pieces.

You might even go whole hog and create a steam tunnel to prep the pieces for bending as opposed to using a bathtub.

If you use the bathtub routine you will need to use lots of glue as the water present in the wood will tend to water it down and prevent it from making a good bond.

Make sure the strips stick proud of the top so that you can sand flush and then route the profile you wish on the edge.

Good luck, and you might just want to have a few extra pieces available just in case some break (yeah, that will tend to blow the sequential grain effect, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do!)

If I am reading your thoughts correctly you've already decided against using veneer for the edges (which would be easy) as that would not give as much protection for the most likely bangs it is going to receive...

[Dewey Torres]

Casey,
See Chris Padilla's Tansu thread here (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=92396&highlight=tansu). He is doing a similar build.