Edge gluing Veneer Tips.

[Scott Felicetti]

I need to take Yellow Poplar Lumber and create Boards and eventually veneers, with a vertical grain. The final length needed is 5'. The width varies between 8" and 14". The thickness must be a uniform 1/8" thick. I see two ways of doing this. 1. Edge glue 5/4" boards of Yellow Poplar then resaw down to as close to 1/8" as possible then run the veneers through a drum sander to get uniform thickness of 1/8". or
2. First Resaw 5/4" Yellow Poplar Boards down to (close to) 1/8" then edge glue the 1/8" veneers to have a vertical grain board 5' long with a width anywhere from 8" to 14".
Any hints. Thank you in advance for any help.
Scott

[Jamie Buxton]

Either can work. However, if you first resaw and then glue up, keeping the pieces aligned during the glue-up can be a challenge. When I bandsaw veneers to glue to a substrate, I veneer-tape the veneer pieces together to form a big sheet (without gluing them to each other), and glue them to the substrate with a vacuum press. The vacuum press, in squeezing the veneers to the substrate, takes care of the alignment issue.