Bryan Wiesendahl
04-10-2015, 7:04 PM
Hey guys. I know this topic's been beaten to death, and then rendered down into glue, but if anyone has any suggestions or resources for my situation, or wants to help me troubleshoot, that would be great!
I'm making a lazy susan, veneered with Walnut burl. Today I was playing around with some hot hide glue and a veneer hammer for the first time, and had not-so good results.
The lazy susan is 22" in diameter, and circular. Is this too much to go at one time with hot hide glue?
The shop temperature, and thus the substrate (MDF, with a curly maple banding) is at 60*. I understand the higher the temperature the shop/substrate the longer the working time is. I'll raise the temperature of both the next go-round.
The glue I used is from Lee Valley, granulated hide glue, and the packaging date says 10/2014. Looks like it's fairly new, so it's not old, past due stuff, right? I covered the granules with water, let it sit a short while, and then started heating in a double boiler on a hotplate. I checked the temp with my IR thermometer, and had it hovering around 145*. Is the infrared thermometer ok for this application, or should I try an immersion candy/meat thermometer? The consistency was that of a light syrup.
I toothed the MDF and the maple with a fine toothing blade in my smoothing plane.
Anyways, my problem is that slopping a layer of glue on to the substrate, a layer on to the back of the veneer, placing the veneer, putting a layer of glue on the face and hammering it out takes about 1 minute. Is this too slow? I pre-flattened my veneer with SuperSoft, but there are still some of the typical bumps that walnut burl has. These bumps tend to not want to stick down, no matter how long I ride the hammer over them. I peeled up the veneer after failure to check and see if I could see a problem, but those areas definitely have glue in them. Is it a problem with the glue temp? Do I have to hammer it for longer? Glue consistency? (by the time I'm done spreading the glue it's pretty gloopy, not easily brushed like I saw on Sir Underhill's show.) How much pressure with the hammer? I'm working from inside to out, obviously. After deconstructing the veneer how thick should the layer of hide glue be? I understand it should be extremely thin, like not visible thin, however mine was pretty thick... is that because of the temp/glue consistency?
Thanks! I have to get this worked out before I use my wonderfully jointed 8 point burl banded piece for the top...would be a shame to ruin that...
I'm making a lazy susan, veneered with Walnut burl. Today I was playing around with some hot hide glue and a veneer hammer for the first time, and had not-so good results.
The lazy susan is 22" in diameter, and circular. Is this too much to go at one time with hot hide glue?
The shop temperature, and thus the substrate (MDF, with a curly maple banding) is at 60*. I understand the higher the temperature the shop/substrate the longer the working time is. I'll raise the temperature of both the next go-round.
The glue I used is from Lee Valley, granulated hide glue, and the packaging date says 10/2014. Looks like it's fairly new, so it's not old, past due stuff, right? I covered the granules with water, let it sit a short while, and then started heating in a double boiler on a hotplate. I checked the temp with my IR thermometer, and had it hovering around 145*. Is the infrared thermometer ok for this application, or should I try an immersion candy/meat thermometer? The consistency was that of a light syrup.
I toothed the MDF and the maple with a fine toothing blade in my smoothing plane.
Anyways, my problem is that slopping a layer of glue on to the substrate, a layer on to the back of the veneer, placing the veneer, putting a layer of glue on the face and hammering it out takes about 1 minute. Is this too slow? I pre-flattened my veneer with SuperSoft, but there are still some of the typical bumps that walnut burl has. These bumps tend to not want to stick down, no matter how long I ride the hammer over them. I peeled up the veneer after failure to check and see if I could see a problem, but those areas definitely have glue in them. Is it a problem with the glue temp? Do I have to hammer it for longer? Glue consistency? (by the time I'm done spreading the glue it's pretty gloopy, not easily brushed like I saw on Sir Underhill's show.) How much pressure with the hammer? I'm working from inside to out, obviously. After deconstructing the veneer how thick should the layer of hide glue be? I understand it should be extremely thin, like not visible thin, however mine was pretty thick... is that because of the temp/glue consistency?
Thanks! I have to get this worked out before I use my wonderfully jointed 8 point burl banded piece for the top...would be a shame to ruin that...