Shop cut veneers

[Michael Merrill]

I just began testing my skill with cutting thin strips on the band saw for a project, not a veneer just some edge banding. I curious with shop cut veneers it seems very difficult to get uniform thickness considering the blade drift and user variables:eek: . My bandsaw is not yet "tuned" as it might need to be for this type of work.

Is it pretty much mandatory to have a drum sander available for thickness sanding when you get ready to veneer a panel with multiple pieces of veneer?

I'm not yet ready to attack a veneer project but I'd like to sometime and want to know a bit more about what I should expect.

[Lee DeRaud]

Is it pretty much mandatory to have a drum sander available for thickness sanding when you get ready to veneer a panel with multiple pieces of veneer?The answer, as usual, is "depends". If you're not trying for a perfect book-match on the adjacent pieces and you don't mind losing a bit of material, you can substitute a planer for the drum sander:
1. get your stock smooth/flat
2. slab off one piece of veneer
3. run the remaining stock through the planer to get the sawn face flat/smooth again
4. repeat steps 2 and 3 until you have what you need (or run out of stock)
The key to this is that each piece of veneer has one smooth face: that's the one you glue down. The top face will have the usual saw marks etc and need to be smoothed, but that's usually somewhat necessary anyway.

Note that I didn't say this method was easier (or better) than using a drum sander, but a planer is a lot cheaper.

And of course how well your bandsaw is tuned and how good your blade is matters a lot.

[John Fry]

I do a lot of shop sawn veneer work. "Blade drift and user variables", are the things you want to eliminate as much as you can. I have a dedicated resaw machine, power feeder, and a carbide blade, but I still feel the need to sand the veneers smooth for a consistant thickness. I have the luxury of a drum sander and so I use it to acheive a perfectly flat and smooth veneer.

But all of this is not necessary to creat shop sawn veneers. I agree with all of Lee's recomendations above, and I suggest you tune the saw, adjust for drift, and work on your technique. Good pressure against the fence and a consistant feed rate will improve the quality of the cut and reduce the sanding requirements.

[Michael Merrill]

Lee, your approach sounds like something I've started doing. When I was cutting strip for edging, I would return to the jointer to give the rough edge a pass and then return to the band saw. This way I always had a clean side that I used for glueing.

I guess just substitute the planer for panel resawing and it's much that same.

I do need to work on tuning the bandsaw though.

[John Timberlake]

I have recently cut some veneers on my bandsaw using a 3/16" x 4 TPI blade. Gave very consistent thickness at about 3/64". I did not try to plane between cut because I was just testing the blade combination. I was actually surprised at how consistent the pieces were. I got 10 veneer pieces out of a 3/4" piece of walnut. If you want to get a smooth face, then you will lose some when planing and cannot get bookmatching since the smooth face is always on the same side.

[Brad Noble]

I do a lot of shop sawn veneer work. "Blade drift and user variables", are the things you want to eliminate as much as you can. I have a dedicated resaw machine, power feeder, and a carbide blade, but I still feel the need to sand the veneers smooth for a consistant thickness. I have the luxury of a drum sander and so I use it to acheive a perfectly flat and smooth veneer.

But all of this is not necessary to creat shop sawn veneers. I agree with all of Lee's recomendations above, and I suggest you tune the saw, adjust for drift, and work on your technique. Good pressure against the fence and a consistant feed rate will improve the quality of the cut and reduce the sanding requirements.
So John, when you coming by the shop and setting up my S45? :D :D Bring your drum sander with you too, OK? :eek:

Brad

[James Biddle]

I was fortunate enough to have a bentwood lamination class with David Marks last week. He tuned a bandsaw that he had never used (the same saw as I own) to a level that cut consistent strips of wood for bending, roughly 1/16" x 3/4" x 3'. The thing is, he did in 15 minutes what I haven't done in a year and a half. I now have a renewed belief that a tuned bandsaw can produce glue-ready parts.

Not sure I can do it, I just know it can be done.:)