Veneer project - Serving tray

[Mike Henderson]

Here's a small project that I completed recently - a elliptical serving tray. The veneer is bubinga and walnut, with maple stringing, and dyed blue veneer for trim. The compass rose is maple and wenge. It's laid on half inch baltic birch plywood using PVA glue.

Bubinga veneer of this type is difficult to deal with - the water from the glue causes it to swell and you can easily get buckling. However, if you set it aside for a long time (maybe a month) the water will come out and the veneer will flatten down.

Making the sides was difficult. It's six layers of veneer wound around an elliptical form that's the same size as the bottom of the tray. I found out that I couldn't glue and clamp it all at one time. If I tried to glue up too much veneer at a time, I couldn't pull it tight enough before clamping and I'd get a buckle in the veneer (I used a strap clamp and some special cauls). So I had to glue it up a small amount at a time, maybe 24 inches at a time. It took a long time to make the elliptical sides.

Anyway, it was a learning project. I plan to give it to a friend as a gift.

Mike

[jonathan snyder]

Wow!!!!

That bubinga is spectacular!!! Great job Mike.

Jonathan

[Neil Lamens]

Hi Mike--

That's quite impressive. You took out all the stops right down to a touch of blue dye.

What's the finish on the tray??

Stunning!!

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Mike,
Nice piece! Looks like a difficult project. Very delicate work, and you did a fine job. I really like the veneers you choose too.
-Jeff

[Calvin Hobbs]

Spectacular work.

Do you have a guess as to how much time you have in it?

What finish did you use?

Thanks for sharing it, Cal

[Mike Henderson]

Hi Mike--

What's the finish on the tray??
The finish is water base poly. It doesn't shine like lacquer but lacquer is heat sensitive. If you put a hot dish in the tray, it will melt and deform the laquer. Found that out the hard way on an earlier tray.

Mike

[Roy Wall]

Awesome Mike!!

So did you veneer just 2 pieces (strips) at a time, leaving a stagger piece to glue and connect the next 2 pieces as you worked your way around the oval....always staggering and continuing the loop till you built up the proper thickness?

[Mike Henderson]

Do you have a guess as to how much time you have in it?
Thanks for sharing it, Cal
Calvin - I have no clue how much time I put into it. I'm retired now so I don't pay much attention to time. I'm sure that it's way more time than I could ever sell it for - that is, if I had to sell it, I'd probalby get about $1/hr for it:) .

I will say that I'm getting better with veneer and could lay the face and back veneer pretty quickly - a lot faster than when I started. I enjoy working with veneer - it allows you to do some interesting decorative things - things that you just can't do with solid wood.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

Awesome Mike!!
So did you veneer just 2 pieces (strips) at a time, leaving a stagger piece to glue and connect the next 2 pieces as you worked your way around the oval....always staggering and continuing the loop till you built up the proper thickness?

Roy - the length around the ellipse is about 60 inches. I made up one piece of veneer over 60 inches in length to start. To connect shorter pieces, I sanded a scarf joint on the two pieces and glued them together. So my first glue was to get this piece glued around the elliptical form. Once this was dry, I took the next piece of veneer and butted it to the end of the first piece and glued and clamped it. I continued this until I had built up five layers. For the last piece, I did like the first one and made up a piece over 60 inches in length - I wanted the end to finish at the end of the ellipse, by one of the handles. I glued this piece half way, then finished the glue job after the first half had dried, making it come out at the end like I described above.

The reason for making up the strip over 60 inches in length is so that I could match up the veneer grain at the joints. But even with that, you can see the joints. If I was to do it over, I'd find some quarter sawn walnut veneer that was over 60 inches in length so that I didn't have any joints showing except the beginning and the end.

Long explanation - hope it's clear.

Mike

[Doug Shepard]

Wow! That's gorgeous. You can certainly see the time and skill that went into it. If you've got any intermediate pics or how-to description of how the compass rose was done, I'd love to see/hear it. I've got to do something sort of similar on a project. I only hope it turns out half that good.

[Mike Henderson]

Wow! That's gorgeous. You can certainly see the time and skill that went into it. If you've got any intermediate pics or how-to description of how the compass rose was done, I'd love to see/hear it. I've got to do something sort of similar on a project. I only hope it turns out half that good.
Doing a compass rose is not difficult, but that depends upon what your background in veneer work is. For example, if you've laid a sunburst I can tell you in a few words how to do a compass rose. But if you've never done any veneer work, there's a long list of tools, techniques, and knowledge that would be needed first. Let me think about it a bit and I'll see if I can write something up.

Mike

[Ed Nelson978]

Mike, that tray is absolutely beautiful! Excellent work. The downside is I showed my wife and she immediately said "I want one" and I know nothing about veneer work. Sooooo.... If you would write something up, it would be appreciated. Inlay and marquetry are to things I would like to tackle this year.

Thanks for the pics!

[John Shuk]

Mike,
that is truly stunning.

[lou sansone]

great looking serving tray. the figure in the bubinga is very nice.

lou

[Mark Stutz]

Beautiful work Mike.

I assume this done with a vacuum press? Is the compass rose inlaid into the field before or after glue-up.

Mark

[Mike Henderson]

Beautiful work Mike.

I assume this done with a vacuum press? Is the compass rose inlaid into the field before or after glue-up.

Mark
Actually, I used a couple of torsion boxes to glue this up. I do have a vacuum press but the torsion boxes were quicker for something this small.

When doing veneer, you almost always do all the cutting and piecing before you do the glue up. So in this case, the compass rose was created first, then laid on the field using the joints in the field for alignment. I taped the compass rose to the field and I carefully cut the field using the border of the compass rose as a guide. Then I snap the waste out of the field and replace it with the compass rose, taping it in place with veneer tape (on the show face). The substrate is then laid on the veneer (I won't go into alignment here) and the veneer is cut just a tiny bit larger than the substrate. Both the top and bottom pieces are cut like that.

Gluing is a problem because this type of bubinga is porous and it buckles if you even suggest water to it. So you have to put enough glue on the substrate but not so much that it comes through the veneer. I wound up putting a bit too little glue on the substrate - because if glue comes through it ruins the whole job - so I had some problems with buckling after I took it out of the press. The buckling does not occur in the press but afterwards. I put the piece in an electric blanket and cooked it for a couple of days which really helped dry it out and essentially eliminated the buckling. It would have been even better if I had set it aside for a month, even after cooking it, before sanding it and putting on the finish.

That's probably a lot more than you wanted to know - sorry.

Mike

[Jim Becker]

Mike, that's really beautiful.

[Rob Millard]

Mike,

I really like the compass. Very nice.
Rob Millard

[Jesse Thornton]

That's really stunning Mike. Thanks for sharing all the great info.

[Dan Oliphant]

Well done, very purdy.

[glenn bradley]

Mike, really quite stikeing.

[Dan Forman]

Lovely tray, and a lucky friend.

Dan

[John Schreiber]

That's a gift fit for a king. Just think of what will be served on a tray like that!

[Mark Stutz]

Mike,
Thanks for the explanation. Pretty much what I thought. I'm having a hard time visualizing the buckling. Iv'e played around with a litlle hammer veneering, but never anything that size or complexity., or with that kind of beautiful veneer.

Mark

[Dave Fifield]

Nice marquetry work Jim!

[Mike Null]

Mike:

Thanks for sharing your work of art. It is beautiful!