Veneer

[michael foster]

Hi,

I have been asked by a client to do a kitchen with zebra veneer and I would like to ask for some advise. . I have never used a vacum bag/pump or attempted this type of work. So I am turning to those who are more knowlegable .The veneer is on all the doors and drawer fronts and there are 4 large doors measuring 18"x80". I have done some research but I value your alls opinion. These are my concerns.
- What equipment should I buy?
- What should I use as a stable sheet material for the doors and drawer fronts?
- Should the end grain veneer be glued on first and then the face veneer?
- Should this be atempted buy someone that has never done veneering?


As always I will look forward to some great advise.

Michael from Barbados.

[Jeff Duncan]

Veneering can be done several ways, but I use a vacuum press as it makes my life much easier. MDF is pretty standard as the base material for these parts. There's no real 'rule' when it comes to which parts to veneer first. In my mind I think the edges should be done first then the faces. However I've also bough sheets already veneered for me and then just added the banding. Most people would not be able to tell the difference. Lastly if your worried about veneering have a local shop lay the veneer up for you. It's actually pretty reasonable to have it done and then you just cut your parts and go!

good luck,
JeffD

[Jamie Buxton]

- What equipment should I buy?
A vacuum bag press is the best way to apply veneer.

- What should I use as a stable sheet material for the doors and drawer fronts?
Plywood or MDF -- whichever you can buy that's flat. Flat is especially a consideration for doors -- not so much for drawer fronts or casework.

- Should the end grain veneer be glued on first and then the face veneer?
I've never seen end grain commercial veneer. You're probably going to have to cut it yourself from solid stock. I'd glue it on first.

- Should this be atempted buy someone that has never done veneering?
You gotta start somewhere. Perhaps you tackle smaller parts of the project first -- like a door or two -- so you can throw them away if you make too many mistakes.

[David C. Roseman]

Michael -

Here's a good website for all sorts of info on veneering. It's run by Joe Gorleski, in Forest Hill, MD:

http://www.joewoodworker.com/

Joe also has a related website for veneering equipment and supplies:

http://www.veneersupplies.com/

David

[Tony Joyce]

Hi,

I have been asked by a client to do a kitchen with zebra veneer and I would like to ask for some advise. . I have never used a vacum bag/pump or attempted this type of work. So I am turning to those who are more knowlegable .The veneer is on all the doors and drawer fronts and there are 4 large doors measuring 18"x80". I have done some research but I value your alls opinion. These are my concerns.
- What equipment should I buy?
- What should I use as a stable sheet material for the doors and drawer fronts?
- Should the end grain veneer be glued on first and then the face veneer?
- Should this be atempted buy someone that has never done veneering?


As always I will look forward to some great advise.

Michael from Barbados.

I would think if you're doing a full kitchen you would need enough plywood to meet a minimum order from the mill. Probably cheaper in the long run even if you have a couple extra sheets.

Tony

[Mike Schuch]

I redid my oak kitchen with maple veneer.

I started by attaching maple ply to all the end cabinets. I used a flush trim bit to get a good edge on the plywood. I found Bondo did a great job filling in all the gaps between the stiles and the plywood providing an excellent smooth flat surface for the veneer. If you don't get the surface perfectly flat it WILL show through the veneer. I applied my cloth backed maple veneer to the stiles first then the rails. I made a ruler/cutting edge out of a metal ruler with a couple L Brackets mounted to it. This did an excellent job of aligning the cuts where the rails butt into the stiles. I think I saw the cutting edge advertised at some laminate supply place but didn't want to drop $30 on something that cost me a $1 to make. I used pretty standard veneer contact cement. 2 years now and nobody can tell that I don't have maple cabinets.

I was pretty surprised at how well the cloth backed veneer (micro cloth or something like that) wrapped around the rails and stiles. I cut a piece of veneer with a paper cutter a little large. After applying the contact cement to the frame and veneer and letting it dry I applied the whole piece to the stile and used a sharp utility knife to trim around the rails. When the veneering was all finished I used a sanding block with 180 to do a bit of final shaping of the veneer once the cement had thoroughly dried.

I cant help you with the drawer faces and doors. My father made me a new set out of solid maple.

[Paul R Miller]

In my opinion, the easiest way to veneer (and the cheapest) is with a veneer hammer an hot hide glue. Fine furniture has been made this way for centuries. There are lots of good videos and information online. Here's a short one I did recently just to illustrate the ease with which it can be done. In my case I was using strips on a cambered hatch cover but it's even easier on one piece layups. The usual rule is the smallest (edges) first and the larger (surfaces) after.

http://youtu.be/D3SLEvvtS0c

[Sam Murdoch]

You might consider asking your plywood supplier to lay up some custom sheets of ply for you. Unless you intend to do more veneer work in the future learning on one job can make it an expensive project. Without knowing the size of the kitchen it's hard to balance the cost but one can get more than a few options of custom veneered ply from this company here in the northeast - http://www.atlanticplywood.com I'm pretty sure that other suppliers will offer some options for you as well.

[Keith Hankins]

Hi,

I have been asked by a client to do a kitchen with zebra veneer and I would like to ask for some advise. . I have never used a vacum bag/pump or attempted this type of work. So I am turning to those who are more knowlegable .The veneer is on all the doors and drawer fronts and there are 4 large doors measuring 18"x80". I have done some research but I value your alls opinion. These are my concerns.
- What equipment should I buy?
- What should I use as a stable sheet material for the doors and drawer fronts?
- Should the end grain veneer be glued on first and then the face veneer?
- Should this be atempted buy someone that has never done veneering?


As always I will look forward to some great advise.

Michael from Barbados.

Ok, first, I've been in your shoes. I did a wine cabinet with a veneer top with bubinga. Did not know squat. Do some research. I will HIGHLY reccomend www.joewoodworker.com. Great site he has plans for a vacuum press that you can build cheep and the plans are simple and he sells the kits or you can buy commercial from him. Trust me its worth it just building one. He sells quality vaneer and supplies and his glue is good as well. Read the articles he has and email him and he is pretty quick to respond and treats newbies well. The substrait will be critical. My first shot was using mdf (most stable) and it was edgewrapped with cherry. Turned out awesome. For my second try I used ply. However, I learned a lession. Be very careful even if the ply looks decent (and never ever use big box ply), after you put it under vacuum any defects will become evident. I had that happen to me. There was a small void a couple layers deep that showed up after it dried. Really pissed, but I used a scrap piece of ply my bad. Find a cabinet shop supplier in your area and buy a quality piece of ply if you are going that route. It should have good number of ply's I prefer baltic birch if possible, but my supplier has some good quality ply so I will use that as well. Second, balance. Don't attempt to save a few $$ by not doing both sides of the panel, if the bottom is not to be seen. I use cheap backer vaneer for that purpose. Anyway it's not that bad once you get the basics down. Good vaneer saw is essential. I like the two cherries but there are others. Get some extra and do a few practice runs to get the hang of it. Bags are the most expensive part. My first bag was vinyl and they are ok except stiff. My last bag for a laminated bed rail for a bed i was building, was a poly bag. Those are sweet. Stays plyable not cheap, but worth the extra bucks in my opinon. You can buy raw materials and make your own, but I would not. If you get a pin leak from not doing it right you will regret it. Joe's bags are perfect and you don't save that much. Only other tip, get a glue color close to your material color, so when it seeps through the voids in the veneer it blends in.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22447246@N06/5893999317/in/set-72157626974447275

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22447246@N06/8866331777/


http://flic.kr/p/cBfFYd

[Sam Murdoch]

Hi Michael from Barbados -

Though I looked for your location before I wrote I had not noticed your "from Barbados" signature. Sorry I offered some advice above that would be good advice if you lived near a big plywood supplier but useless for an islander (I'm guessing) :rolleyes:. Fortunately Keith and others above have provided useful posts. Good luck with your project. Then just a thought - The down side to using regular MDF or Baltic Birch ply as a substrate for a kitchen project - Especially as regards doors and drawer fronts - is that these products are heavy. If you can find some TruPan or Utralight MDF you will be OK. This will give you a very flat and dimensionally stable base for the veneer. I would use plywood for the case work as it holds screws much better than MDF.

[Chris Padilla]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?92396-Tansu

I built a tansu with shop-cut walnut veneers over MDF (a sandwich of two 5/8" MDF). It might help you to go through my thread and fire away with questions if you have them.

A summary of my approach:

By shop-cutting my own veneers, I could make them as thick as I wanted and I went 1/16"...which is a lot easier to handle and work with than the typical 1/40" you can buy commercially. I used a good bandsaw to cut my own veneers along with a good blade. I then used a drum-sander to sand all my veneers down to uniform thickness. Then I proceeded to veneer the walnut to the MDF and used a vacuum bag for that. I got all my stuff (glue, rollers, advice, bags, veneer tape, veneer tools, etc.) from the link David above supplied at Veneer Press. I also edge-banded my MDF first...then put the veneers over that. I felt it looked nicer and hides the "meet edge" a lot better. I think if you use the glue from Veneer Press and a vacuum bag, you shouldn't have any issues with the "fragile" edge some think this gives. My tansu gets daily use and is looking fine 5 years later...absolutely no issues whatsoever. I finished the whole thing in clear shellac.

It was a fun project, turned out way better than I thought, and I learned a ton veneering. I have since purchased other veneers (birdseye maple) and am using them on a maple entertainment center I am working on. I also bought myself a small vacuum bag as using the giant one (it can hold a 4x8 sheet of plywood) got too cumbersome as I found most of my projects could fit in a smaller bag.

I think once you head down the veneer path, you open your skills up to a larger audience and can really provide them with rare, exotic species that are sometimes only available in veneer form. Good Luck to you!

[George Gyulatyan]

Sounds like a large-ish projects where you'll need to purchase a large number of sheets. I'd check out Herzog Veneers (http://www.veneeronline.com/). Not affiliated with them, just have purchased veneer from them in the past and been very happy. The only thing is, they don't deal in small quantities.

[michael foster]

thank you all for taking the time to give me some much needed advise.
Michael from Barbados.