Need to keep stain out of a piece of veneer

[Mitchell Andrus]

I'm begining to work with inlays and veneers. Is there a way to keep the stain that's being applied to the overall piece (white oak) from getting into the lighter colored veneer inlay. The process has to survive finish sanding following pressing.

I thought of soaking the parts in lacquer primer/sealer prior to glue-up, but that didn't work.

Painting the lighter wood with two coats of sealer following sanding works, but is a real pain.

Any ideas?? Thanks.

Mitch

[Jamie Buxton]

I've wondered how those Arts & Crafts guys managed this. Painting the inlay with resist seems like it might work, but as you say is a big pain. A second possibility is to cut the recess, stain the oak, and then glue in the inlay. Another possibility is to use a staining method which preferentially stain the oak. For instance, there's the famous ammonia-fuming technique for oak. It takes advantage of the tannin in the oak to stain it. Perhaps there no tannin in your inlay for the ammonia to react with.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Fuming is so.... 1910's. It's toxic, and few do it. I don't as it's a REAL pain and doesn't allow offering different colors, unless you follow-up with stain anyway.

Gluing in the inlay would work if yoou could pre surface everything to the same thickness and get zero glue squeeze-out. HA to that!!!

Mitch

[Lee DeRaud]

Why not just spray only the face side of the lighter veneer with sealer before you cut it?

[Mitchell Andrus]

Gotta get sanded smooth, that takes the sealer off.

I'm really looking for something that permeates the wood making it impossible to accept stain (of course it has to allow the finish to stick).

Tall order.

Mitch

[Lee DeRaud]

Gotta get sanded smooth, that takes the sealer off.Ok, come at it from the other direction: stain the oak before you cut the inlay pocket. If you're doing enough sanding to remove the stain from the pores of the oak, I'd suggest you need to find a better strategy for getting the pocket depth matched to the veneer thickness.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Well, that makes sense too...'cept that rastering that deep splashes oak resin all over the surface wrecking the stain.

Besides, I need to be able to do this entirely in veneer (all vector cutting), field piece included.

There's no problem doing this in woods that don't need to change color as in the pen boxes and walnut wall plaques, but white oak needs to be stained.

I'm wondering if a solid synthetic inlay material, like corian, might be what I want, as long as it resists stains. It's GOT to simulate wood - light like Lemonwood or Holly, and light brown like Walnut, and glue has to stick to it.

See why nobody else is attacking this market? To the victor go the spoils.

Mitch

[Lee DeRaud]

Besides, I need to be able to do this entirely in veneer (all vector cutting), field piece included.Uh, unless I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to do, that's actually a lot easier:
(1) you can still stain first,
(2) odds are the veneers are already very close to the same thickness, minimizing sanding, and
(3) glue squeeze-out is less of an issue, at least in my experience.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Just a little "Bump".