How to make a veneer compass rose

[Mike Henderson]

After I posted pictures of my serving tray with a compass rose in it, several of you asked me for directions for making a compass rose. I've done a write up which I have here (http://members.cox.net/norma.henderson/papers/compassrose.pdf). It's an Acrobat (PDF) document of about 2MB, with lots of pictures.

I'd appreciate your comments, including any errors or items which were hard to understand.

And if you like the write up, post here to bump it up again so that others can find the writeup.

Mike

[Mike Seals]

Excellent write up Mike, that's some tedious work, well worth the results. You make it look easy, I've some nice walnut and several other light wood veneers around, may have to give it a try.

[Greg Funk]

Thanks Mike - Great write up.

I've never done any veneering so excuse me if these are basic questions:

1. When you make your cuts are you holding the knife at exactly 90 degrees or do you make a slight bevel?
2. Do you make your own veneer or buy it?
3. Is there an optimal veneer thickness for this type of work?

Greg

[Doug Shepard]

Thanks Mike
I was mainly asking for the tutorial to see how you were forming the individual pieces and how you were getting them all identically sized, but see now that the way you're doing it makes that not so critical by re-cutting after the tape-up. Makes a lot of sense. I've been using shop sawn thicker veneers (about 1/16"+) and using a shooting board with angled fence and a block plane but still need to finesse the fence angle a bit. I'm not making a compass rose but a feather circle and knew that some of the same techniques would probably work. I definitely got a few ideas to try from your excellent write-up.

[lou sansone]

great write up.... I think SMC should have a place dedicated to storing such tutorials ... something like a "knowlege base" department

lou

[Mike Henderson]

Thanks Mike - Great write up.

I've never done any veneering so excuse me if these are basic questions:

1. When you make your cuts are you holding the knife at exactly 90 degrees or do you make a slight bevel?
2. Do you make your own veneer or buy it?
3. Is there an optimal veneer thickness for this type of work?

Greg
Greg - Making a compass rose is not a good beginning veneer project. There's a lot of things you need to know before you tackle a project like this, some of which you're asking about. I would suggest taking a class on veneer to get the basics. But let me take a stab at answering your questions.

1. When you cut veneer, you generally have a good piece and a waste piece. You want the cut on the good piece to be straight. So you normally put your straightedge on the veneer to be kept and cut on the waste side. You hold the knife so that you get a straight cut on the good veneer. Cutting on the waste side also protects you in case your knife or saw wanders - the cut will go to the waste and not ruin the piece of veneer you want to use.

2. I buy my veneer.

3. Commercial veneer is all about the same thickness and all of it will work.

Thank you for your note.

Mike

[Paul Kinneberg]

Mike (or any body else familiar with veneering)
Do you have any suggestions for good a veneer class?

[Jack Ferrell]

Excellent write up Mike. Your tutorial on how to do this is well done. I've been wanting to start venturing into veneering and enjoy reading about it. Have some nice sheets but need to learn more then I'll practice on some cheaper stuff.
Posts such as this are the main reason I signed up here at The Creek. I often refer to the Articles and Reviews section and read up on them. I hope this post of yours makes it there so others can see it in the future.
Thanks, Jack.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike (or any body else familiar with veneering)
Do you have any suggestions for good a veneer class?
Look to your local community college if they offer woodworking classes. FWW had a good article on basic veneering in the last issue. If you can't take a class, read that and practice. Ask questions here when you hit problem areas - which are all over the place in veneering.

Mike

[Jim Becker]

Excellent tutorial, Mike! I really have an appreciation for the work you do...perhaps I'll try this someday!

[Steve Wargo]

Wow, Mike that is a great tutorial. I've done a compass rose before, and learned more than a couple shortcuts. Very nice. Thanks.

[Chris Barton]

Hi Mike,

As others have said, great tutorial and great addition to SMC! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[Ralph Barhorst]

I agree with everything mentioned above. I plan to make a hall table with a veneered top with some type of design in it. I am printing out your instructions and plan to start practicing soon.

Thanks for taking the time to do this.

[Al Willits]

Very well done and the pictures really help.
Great post, thanks a lot.
Although not quite ready for this, I'm definitely gonna put this on my list of things to try.

Al

[Martin Shupe]

Mike,

I have never done veneering, but your article makes me want to learn. Very nice work, and thanks for the article.

[Steve Dewey]

A couple notes from someone who has never veneered.

1 - You mentioned a few times that you "can't go into that here" regarding some basic techiniques. A friendlier phrase might be - that is beyond the scope of this article. Perhaps with a footnote called out (see number 2).

2 - A list of references would be extremely helpful for a rookie - your favorite how to book(s), relevant websites etc. Everyone can google, but someone with experience in the field can seperate the wheat from the chafe.

Thanks for taking the time for the writeup. Maybe you should add it to the "articles" section here on SMC.

As a sailor I really enjoy the "subject" of your art.:cool: I've been thinking of doing a nautical themed cutting board - so now I have to figure out if I can adapt your technique to end grain blocks:confused:

[Mike Henderson]

A couple notes from someone who has never veneered.

1 - You mentioned a few times that you "can't go into that here" regarding some basic techiniques. A friendlier phrase might be - that is beyond the scope of this article. Perhaps with a footnote called out (see number 2).

2 - A list of references would be extremely helpful for a rookie - your favorite how to book(s), relevant websites etc. Everyone can google, but someone with experience in the field can seperate the wheat from the chafe.

Thanks for taking the time for the writeup. Maybe you should add it to the "articles" section here on SMC.

As a sailor I really enjoy the "subject" of your art.:cool: I've been thinking of doing a nautical themed cutting board - so now I have to figure out if I can adapt your technique to end grain blocks:confused:
Steve - thank you for your suggestions. I'll modify the write up to address your comments.

Regarding making a compass rose from solid wood, doing wedges in solid wood has problems. As the wood expands and contracts, it pulls the wedges apart and you wind up with gaps between the wedges, or a hole where the points meet. I've never seen it done with end grain but I would think the problem is the same. That's one design that veneer can do but cannot be done with solid wood.

Mike

[Steve Dewey]

hmmm hadn't thought about wood movement. Maybe a hole in the middle on purpose??? Ahh well, folks seem to like my simple checkerboard cutting boards well enough. I should probably KISS, my other idea was to burn the design of a compass rose on (by hand or maybe shop it out to someone with a laser).

[Kent Parker]

Mike,

Beautiful work! Your attention to detail certainly comes through in your most thoughtfull tutorial. Thanks so much!

Cheers,

Kent

[Mike Monroe]

Thanks for the very informative and well written article. With your tutorial as a guide and some patience (and proper tools) I think I could construct a veneer compass rose.

-Mike

[Mike Henderson]

My web space is provided as part of my cable modem service. However, I'm limited to 10MB of disk space and 300MB of bandwidth per month. I checked the bandwidth used a couple of days after I posted this tutorial, and it was about 1.25GB - way over my allotment. So far the cable people haven't cut off access to my web site, but I needed to find another way to host the tutorial.

Wiktor Kuc has a woodworking web site which you may have visited in the past (http://www.wkfinetools.com/). I asked him if he would host this tutorial and he agreed. It's located here (http://www.wkfinetools.com/tUsing/art/veneerCompRose/vCompassR1.asp). I'm going to take down the original paper by the end of this month to get the disk space back.

Thank you all for your very kind comments. If I have time, I'll do another tutorial in a month or so on making a veneer sand shaded fan - something like the picture below (the picture is really bad).

Mike

[Howie French]

Mike,

I have not attempted veneering yet, but I will someday.
Your work is great, and I really appreciate you taking the time
to document your process. I would enjoy seeing your
faded fan tutorial very much.

Howie