As promised success or failure low cost vacuum veneering

[Keith Christopher]

Here is the results of my inexpensive veneering setup. This was done vaccum style. I took some small pieces of a quilted bubinga veneer about 5"x10" and using titebond yellow glue and a substrate of maple scrap I had lying around from making the headboard. I set about veneering. the first images shows the setup with a pine board but I decided to use maple later. in the image are front and back veneers (I have ALOT of this quilted bubinga veneer ) The next photo is of the board befor I trimmed it down (it was a test I didn't bother to cut the board close to the veneer) then the board after I trimmed it. No gaps, no loose spots, nice and flat and evenly glued. and I did it for 22.95$ US.

[Keith Christopher]

Below is trimmed pictures top , edge and top with some napatha. And my veneering rig. :) Don't laugh too loud I'm sure I'm not the first one who's done this. And a "close up" just in case you can't figure it out. :)

[Keith Christopher]

That's right, I bought space bags for 22.95$ US shipped to my door, and then used my shop vac and a small platen to suck all the air out and wala I got an EXCELLENT Veneer from this. I know it's a small and thin veneer but I'll try some homemade veneers in there just for giggles. Not a great or professional solution but it worked as the pictures show.

[Don Selke]

Hey Keith, great idea and I would like to try that myself. Please let us know when you try the homemade veneers. What type of material did you use under the veneer? Plywood or MDF? Many years ago my Mom bought a Electrolux vacuum cleaner that came with a spray gun, I think that was the start of HVLP spray painting. You may be on to something.

[Keith Christopher]

Well I didn't have any decent scraps of MDF or PLY so I used a hunk of maple. But I imagine the results would have been the same.

[sascha gast]

i also have a lot of bubinga veneer at my house, got about 80 square feet. but it's commercial veneer, kinda thin and i get the glue bleeding through the veneer like you do and it'll take the finish really crappy. that's when i decided to only cut my own veneer. little more hassle, but i'll mill it to 1/16th of an inch. the idea for the space bag seems cool. certaily better than trying to use 500 clamps.

sascha

[Keith Christopher]

Sasha,


Yeah I did have some. I'll hit it with a scraper and then throw some finish on it just to make a complete test.


Keith

[Ted Shrader]

Keith -

What a great idea. How thick are the spacebags? Have never actually touched one. How long did you run your shop vac - any periodic "touch ups" on the vaccuum? Have heard the spacebags leak after a period of time so they aren't really good for use as advertized.

Regards,
Ted

[Keith Christopher]

Keith -

What a great idea. How thick are the spacebags? Have never actually touched one. How long did you run your shop vac - any periodic "touch ups" on the vaccuum? Have heard the spacebags leak after a period of time so they aren't really good for use as advertized.

Regards,
Ted
I found that the space bag only leaked when the slider on the zip lock thing wasn't moved the absolute entire length of the seal. I vacuumed one time for about 2-3 minutes until all the air was clearly out. You can see how sealed it is around the cauls and platen. They are not as thick as a regular bag so I see them wearing out quickly, and I knocked down the sharp corners of the cauls so as to not puncture it. I bought these esp for trying this . :)

Keith

[Pete Lamberty]

Keith, how long did you leave the veneer "sandwich" in the space bag?

[Keith Christopher]

Pete,

For this small piece I only left it in for 4 hours. for larger pieces I would leave them in for 8-24 hours. But that's just me.


Keith

[Dan Gill]

Thanks for the update. Someone posted a question about this on another forum which shall remain nameless, and I said that I had considered it, but thought you should soften the corners of the cauls. For simply considering this, and for pointing out that one of the other posters had made an erroneous comment, I was flamed and ridiculed. I have been waiting to get a chance to try this with Space Bags just to prove them wrong. Now I don't have to.

I very seldom post on that other forum anymore. I really much prefer the Creek.

[Keith Christopher]

Hehe, Dan you should link this. And I find it amusing that in a craft where some of the biggest ohhhhhs and ahhhhhsss came from people trying something out of the ordinary. I'm glad I'm only a member here on SMC.

[jerry cousins]

"For this small piece I only left it in for 4 hours. for larger pieces I would leave them in for 8-24 hours. But that's just me."

just another perspective - i've been vacuuming for several years and have found that it is ok to pull the piece out after about 2 hours (some say 1.5) - have not had a failure. the glue is still not cured but because the vacuum removes the air and the water - the bond is complete. unlike clamps and cauls where you have to wait for the water to evaporate.

just another way
jerry

[Jack Hogoboom]

Seems like a very reasonable way to at least see if you like veneering before sinking bigger $$$ into a real vacuum system. Do you have a link for a place to buy the bags??

Jack

[Neal White]

I just did an ebay search for "space bag" and got 284 hits. I didn't check very many out, and some were not the real thing, but many were. The prices seemed pretty reasonable. Just a thought. Neal

[Keith Christopher]

You can go to their WWW site. It's self explainatory. spacebag.com

[Keith Christopher]

Seems like a very reasonable way to at least see if you like veneering before sinking bigger $$$ into a real vacuum system. Do you have a link for a place to buy the bags??

Jack

Jack,

I did this just for fun to see if it would work. I am by no means saying this will be a perm solution for vacuum pressing. :) It was fun for me to see if it worked and it did. I can assure you it worked well in this example. I bought them online from spacebags.com. GL and post pictures showing any glue ups you do.

Keith

[Keith Cope]

Keith,

Nice innovative solution! Never would have guessed those space bags would pull enough vacuum to do the trick! I did notice you had some glue bleed through, that was a bit tricky for me too at first. You might check out joewoodworker.com, he's got tape, rollers, etc. that are pretty reasonably priced and definitely helpful. There's also a forum dedicated to veneering at vacupress.com. Have fun!

[Dan Gill]

Seems like a very reasonable way to at least see if you like veneering before sinking bigger $$$ into a real vacuum system. Do you have a link for a place to buy the bags??

Jack
Just watch late night TV. :D

[Keith Christopher]

Just watch late night TV. :D
Dan,

That's what gave me this wild idea to use spacebags to try and veneer. I just wanted to see if it could be done. LOL


Keith

[Ellen Benkin]

A lot of places sell the Space Bags now. I know Bed, Bath, and Beyond has had them for many years. I've used them for storage but never for woodworking. I took a class last summer and one person used a vacuum food storage system for a small piece, and that worked as well as the regular vacuum press system so I think any vacuum system will work.