Making your own veneer without a drumsander

[Chris Merriam]

Title kind of says it all. I have a nice bandsaw now, haven't ordered a premium resaw blade yet, but I will soon. I don't have a drum sander, what are my options after the veneer is cut? Apply the veneer then run through planer (or hand plane) after the glue dries? What about if I want to try bent laminations, am I out of luck?

Thanks for any tips!

[Loren Woirhaye]

Why not joint the face in between sawing and leave the rough face up so you can surface it after it's glued to the substrate?

There's a discussion of making a sawn veneer silver chest of spalted maple in one of James Krenov's books and he certainly had no drum sander when he made the piece.

[Frank Drew]

Why not joint [surface plane] the face in between sawing and leave the rough face up so you can surface it after it's glued to the substrate?

That's what I'd do, but maybe with top quality equipment you could get a gluing surface right off the saw.

[johnny means]

There was a time when veneer wasn't a millionth of an inch thick. Resaw to whatever thickness you can achieve, and use. I do my bent laminations straight off the table saw, your bandsaw should do a fine job of cutting to a pliable thickness. As much as I love my power tools and consider them necessary for me to get things done, I always like to remind myself that none of the great antiquities was made with a power tool.

[Sam Murdoch]

Resaw through the bandsaw to say - 3/16" - always starting with a joined face. When you have all your pieces add a smooth surface sled (melamine or waxed mdf, or the like) to your thickness planer table and take your resawn/one surface jointed stock through the planer to 1/8" or just under. Nice veneers will result that are quite flexible. Of course there will be limits to the size of the curve depending on your wood species but this technique offers a range of options.

The 40" x 3.5" x 7/8" thick cherry rails on this bench were done using this method -

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[Jamie Buxton]

I get usable veneers right off the bandsaw. I use a Laguna LT16HD with a Lenox Woodmaster CT carbide blade. The sawn surface is good enough to glue down. I generally saw at .1" or so. After the veneer is glued to the substrate, I clean up the show side with a 6" random orbit sander starting at 100 grit. I don't bother re-face-jointing the stock between slices. Mostly I don't do that because I'm going to bookmatch veneers, so the rejointing doesn't help. (Well, okay, I sometimes rejoint if the stock starts warping uncontrollably.) For bent laminations, I do the same -- saw the laminations, and use them.

[Chris Merriam]

Thanks for the responses. Sam that is one nice looking bench! Having only resawn with my old Jet 14in riser block and a timerberwolf blade, my earlier attempts all looked like giant washboards. But now that I've got an MM16 I guess I just need to get a nice blade on it and go for it.

For those running sleds through the planer, what do you do about infeed roller marks? Do you saw the veneer extra thick knowing you'll have to plane out the roller marks? Seems like with a little experimentation you could boil it down to exactly how much thicker you need to start with.

[Sam Murdoch]

Thanks for the responses. Sam that is one nice looking bench! Having only resawn with my old Jet 14in riser block and a timerberwolf blade, my earlier attempts all looked like giant washboards. But now that I've got an MM16 I guess I just need to get a nice blade on it and go for it.

For those running sleds through the planer, what do you do about infeed roller marks? Do you saw the veneer extra thick knowing you'll have to plane out the roller marks? Seems like with a little experimentation you could boil it down to exactly how much thicker you need to start with.

Thanks, I like it too :). As for the roller marks - Never been an issue, using sharp cutters and a well adjusted T planer. As I wrote 3/16" stock down to 1/8" easy enough. I trust Jamie's experience that you can just resaw and glue though I haven't done it that way.

You are going to love working with such a nice bandsaw.

[Steve Peterson]

I did some knotty alder "veneer" using just my bandsaw, jointer, and planer. As already mentioned, run back to the jointer after each bandsaw cut to give you a good surface on each piece. I ran many of them back through my lunchbox planer and was able to get down to just over 1/16" thick before they would start blowing up. Make sure to cut at least twice as many pieces as you will eventually need, since there could be a lot of loss. You could also leave the top surface rough and sand it or hand plane it smooth.

I have a drum sander now and it really makes the process a lot simpler.

Steve

[Chris Merriam]

Thanks Steve, I have no problem doing it the hard way or old-fashioned way. Since I haven't done any veneering yet I can't justify buying any more equipment. I was just not able to find much discussion on the actual surface prep of resawn veneers. Most veneer articles are written assuming you're using store-bought veneer. And the articles that do talk about sawing your own only discuss the sawing process, not what happens afterwards.

[Andrew Joiner]

I had good luck with Jamie's methods. I get uniform veneers right off the saw. I have a 21" Grizzly bandsaw. With a resaw king blade the faces are almost as smooth as the best table saw blade rip cuts. I tested my set-up first with scraps and they glued down perfectly right from the saw. I bandsawed quilted maple and sapele veneer about 3/32" thick for my last dining table top.

To get a good bookmatch you want as little of the grain missing. So jointing after each slice gives a worse bookmatch.

[Sam Murdoch]

To get a good bookmatch you want as little of the grain missing. So jointing after each slice gives a worse bookmatch.

… but with bent laminations - where the edges will show - your cuts have to be smooth or the laminations will look like crap - maybe not throughout, but it only takes a few slight voids to compromise the look of an otherwise great glue up.

[Andrew Joiner]

… but with bent laminations - where the edges will show - your cuts have to be smooth or the laminations will look like crap - maybe not throughout, but it only takes a few slight voids to compromise the look of an otherwise great glue up.
I agree Sam.
I just checked a stack of veneers that came right off the bandsaw and resaw king setup. The cuts are smooth enough to prevent any voids if used as you describe for bent laminations.

I don't use a power feeder to saw veneer. That would insure uniform smooth veneers. I hand feed with steady pressure continuously through the entire cut to simulate power feed. One stop while feeding( to adjust your hands or stance) WILL leave tick marks from blade vibration. Those marks would make voids on bent laminations ,where the edges show.

[Chris Merriam]

No stopping huh? Good to know, I didn't realize that would cause such an issue. Guess that makes proper in/outfeed support and featherboards that much more important.

[Andrew Joiner]

Yes, Chris,but test it for yourself. Stopping or even a slow down in feed rate will affect the surface smoothness. I was surprised that a fast feed rate produced smoother faces than a slow feed rate, at least with my set-up.

Right, proper in/outfeed support and featherboards are important.

[steven taggart]

I use a sanding drum on my drill press, and set the fence to about 1/16" behind it, creating a mini drum sander. Not the fastest method, but works really well.