Birds eye maple question

[Craig D Peltier]

Hello peers, I was wondering If I were to build a dresser with corner legs being birds eye maple (curved and tapered) would it be illogical to try and hunt down 8/4 bird eye maple? I can find 4/4 at $16bf. Should I just glue two together or that will look funky. With my nil :D limited experience in veneering Im going to try an shy away from that. Plus legs being tapered and curved might not want it to be a project to take on for first. Is the only way to do veneer?

[Neil Lamens]

Hi Craig:

Why birds-eye maple...........can you change materials???? Why not tiger maple if your looking for figure???? Varying dimensions will be available.

Personally I would move to another material before gluing up 4/4 Birds-eye or I'd veneer a poplar leg.

What's the design????

Neil

[David DeCristoforo]

Bird's Eye is a tough one. Most of the really nice stuff goes straight to the veneer mills. You can search around for 8/4 BE but you are going to want to be able to look at the wood before you buy. Most of the stuff being sold as BE usually has a few "pecks" in the wood and that seems to be enough to qualify it as BE. And the wood that really does have some decent eye can also have a lot of darker coloring. There are some places that specialize in BE (you can find them on the 'net). What you want is what they are calling "architectural grade" BE which generally will be pretty clean, light colored and fairly decently figured. Wood with really profuse figure is hard to find.

[Pat Zabrocki]

Personally, I really like birdseye maple when it has a lot of "eyes". The tiger is good too but there's no faulting the birdseye. With that said, check www.bellforestproducts.com (http://www.bellforestproducts.com). I bought some that I want to say was 6/4 and really more like 7/4. I think if you contact him, you could get what your looking for. Also, they have some very descriptive pictures of actual boards. Gilmer is another one that you may try www.gilmerwood.com (http://www.gilmerwood.com) both can be a bit pricey but thats up to you to decide. Hope I didn't violate any rules by give urls or names, I'm not affiliated just like their stuf and have had good luck.

cheers
Pat

[Craig D Peltier]

Heres where I got idea.

66678

[David DeCristoforo]

"...I really like birdseye maple when it has a lot of "eyes"..."

I used to get BE maple that had eyes the size of a pencil eraser. And you couldn't touch the surface with a pencil eraser without hitting an eye. But, I haven't seen bird's eye that nice for many years and then only in veneer form. Well figured BE is awesome under a good oil finish. I have used some on my chess boards recently that was pretty nice but since I only need 3"X24" pieces, it's pretty easy (though wasteful) to chop out the best parts of a board.

[Christof Grohs]

My family has property in the UP of Michiagn. Located very close to us is a place called Birds-eye Creations. They sell whole logs if you so desire.
BE Creations (http://www.birdseyecreations.com/the.store?cart_id=1603886.23387&page=logs.html)

[Earl Kelly]

Craig,

Legs,such as the pic above are a piece of cake to veneer. As long as you have an ample supply of clamps. I've veneered straight and curved legs. It's a matter of getting enough bending ply to fit the curve and spread the pressure from the clamps.

[Craig D Peltier]

Craig,

Legs,such as the pic above are a piece of cake to veneer. As long as you have an ample supply of clamps. I've veneered straight and curved legs. It's a matter of getting enough bending ply to fit the curve and spread the pressure from the clamps.

Bending ply, elaborate? Thin like draw bottom stuff at the borg?
How can I edge the veneer at the corners, cut veneer at 45 or is it too thin to do so? Sorry newbie at veneer.

[Dan Stuewe]

I don't know if this would be a factor or not, but from what I know about birds eye maple, only the faces have the eyes. So the eyes wouldn't go around to the edge of the legs. Please correct me if I'm wrong about this.

[Tim Sproul]

I don't know if this would be a factor or not, but from what I know about birds eye maple, only the faces have the eyes. So the eyes wouldn't go around to the edge of the legs. Please correct me if I'm wrong about this.


It is like any other figure. Depends on the cut and the wood. You can rift saw some figured woods and get figure on all 4 faces of a leg blank....albeit the figure tends to be less pronounced compared to a quartered cut or plainsawn cut, depending on the figure and the stick in hand.

One example would be lacewood/leopard wood. As you go from quartered with large ray figure on 2 quartersawn faces and negligible figure on the adjacent plainsawn faces to rift, you get smaller rays showing up where they were large and small rays showing up where there were none. I like to use rift lacewood for making cabinet handles....the small ray pattern looks nice on a nice small piece of wood, IMO. For a large panel, you might want larger rays and hence look for true quarted cut.

I suspect that for birdseye, you can achieve a similar effect with many sticks of birdseye maple. If not, all the more reason to give veneering a go :)!

[Bill Wyko]

The legs on that picture look to me like quilted maple, not birds eye. That sure is a nice piece of work though.

[Craig D Peltier]

The legs on that picture look to me like quilted maple, not birds eye. That sure is a nice piece of work though.
Yeah alot of work into that piece it looks like. The sides are curved and the door faces outer edge arent square they follow lines of door.

[Earl Kelly]

Craig,

Bendy ply or Curv-a-board same thing, at least to me. Comes in several thicknesses up to 1/2" it bends quite easily. On a curve I would use up to 3-4 layers which will curve independently of each other until the clamps snug them down. The reason to use so many is to spread the clamp load so you won't need clamps so close together.

On shallower curves you can just use 3/4 regular ply and get it to conform to the curve. I always try to start at the center and work out.

You have to work out the economics and practicality of using a figured solid for legs versus veneering them. Sometimes the choice is made for you when 8/4,10/4 or 12/4 is just not available at ANY price.

AS for the edge, the veneer is 1/32-1/42 thick. With a little easing of the corner and gluing the veneer on in a sequence so that only one edge seam can be seen from the front or side( which takes a bit longer than doing opposing sides at the same time) the seam will not detract from the figure and appearance of the leg. Granted it will not be totally invisible, but quite acceptable.

[Craig D Peltier]

Thanks Earl, I will be tackling this next week. I think I have decided for legs to be 5/4 figured planed down to hopefully 7/8. The doors I will veneer, the edges are hidden in the frame and the top will be 5/4 figured maple.

Is is a design fau paux (sp) to mix birde eye maple veneer on doors and quilted or curly etc on the legs.Will it look a alot diferent and out of whack? Should I stick with same all the way through.Im not building the mirror.

[Earl Kelly]

Craig,

I would be careful to not have the figured woods fight each other. A lot of it (the design) depends on personal taste. I've personally mixed Karelian/Masur birch burl and Curly Maple. I felt it looked good together, others may disagree.

Also, keep in mind the strength of the figure in the wood can make a part seem stronger than other sections. Such as, doors with a strong figure and legs with much less, but still figured.

[Craig D Peltier]

Craig,

I would be careful to not have the figured woods fight each other. A lot of it (the design) depends on personal taste. I've personally mixed Karelian/Masur birch burl and Curly Maple. I felt it looked good together, others may disagree.

Also, keep in mind the strength of the figure in the wood can make a part seem stronger than other sections. Such as, doors with a strong figure and legs with much less, but still figured.

Thank you very much Earl.

[Craig D Peltier]

Another question. How can I get this top to look like this with the bevels on the edge with a power tool. Im not very good at hand planing.
I was thinking about gluing half of it together and marking lines and resawing the bevel off ? Good or bad idea?
Also I could buy and electric hand planer if that will work better?
Also maybe belt sander after its all glued up, start with hand plane maybe?

What do you'll think?

PS I ended up getting figured maple for legs, top and veneer for doors. More fiddleback than anything but found some nice birdseye for a different project. I see now that a real nice piece of figured maple should be collected when found.Its not easy to find real nice stuff.

[Craig D Peltier]

No one knows how to do this? Above post.

[Earl Kelly]

Craig,

How much bevel do you want? A 2-3" beveled edge or more like a chamfer just right along the edge. A big bevel could be done on the bandsaw and cleaned up with a sander. Hand tools would be slower and should give you more control.

Myself, a big bevel, I would use the bandsaw and be careful on the glueup. Then cleanup with a belt sander and block sand to finish up.

[James Phillips]

Another question. How can I get this top to look like this with the bevels on the edge with a power tool. Im not very good at hand planing.
I was thinking about gluing half of it together and marking lines and resawing the bevel off ? Good or bad idea?
Also I could buy and electric hand planer if that will work better?
Also maybe belt sander after its all glued up, start with hand plane maybe?

What do you'll think?

PS I ended up getting figured maple for legs, top and veneer for doors. More fiddleback than anything but found some nice birdseye for a different project. I see now that a real nice piece of figured maple should be collected when found.Its not easy to find real nice stuff.


If you have a table saw and dado set. Set you dado blade as wide as possible. Set it at an angle where the TOP of the blade represents the bevel angle you want. Make a pass along the very edge. Lower the blade and move over a little. Make another pass. Folow this pattern until you finish the bevel. Clean up with sand paper. The amount of sanding will be directly related to the quality of the dado. Clearly maek both sides in advance to be sure you can match them.

Good Luck