Veneer Method

[Greg Cole]

Leafing through the latest FWW mag..... and one of the reader tips IIRC was to apply TBI or TB II to your veneer and to your substrate and allow to dry at least one hour IIRC. Place the veneer on the substrate and iron in place... the heat melts the glue and eliminates a static press-clamp set up as well as the need to use a vacuum set up.
Everything I've ever read about veneering says to either do it the old fashioned way with hide glue and hammer away, use a static press of some sort or bite the bullet and buy the vacuum pump & bag set up ala Joe WW.
Pretty much the same process as iron on edge banding, just a much larger scale per say. Seems like an easy way to test the veneering waters for me anyway, as I've wanted to try it.... but not wanted to dump alot of $ into the initial trials.
Anyone here have any $0.02 on the apply glue, let dry and heat in place?

Thanks in advance.

Greg

[Peter Quinn]

Mario Rodriguez advocates the iron method for shop made veneer, has a nice article on it in FWW in the past year. Haven't tried it yet but am planning to. Got to believe he knows what he's talking about.

[Greg Cole]

Peter,
That's a more reliable source that a reader of FWW (nothing against umm... guys like me who read FWW:rolleyes:). Either didn't read that FWW or might have had it purged from the NV ram between the ears since reading it? Do you know what month or issue it was by chance?
Veneering seems like a fine art upon first inspection, and this method seems too easy, or is it just me?
Thanks for the info...

Greg

[Travis Gudenkauf]

I use contact (3M 1357) and vacuum bag it. A cheating way is to run a bead of super glue all the way around the piece instead of vacuum bagging. Depends on the Specie and thickness of veneer also. Burls curl real bad and absolutely need bagging.

[Jamie Buxton]

I've tried that iron-down method. It works okay unless you have seams in the veneer. The heat of the iron makes the veneer shrink, and that pulls the seams open.

[Thomas S Stockton]

Greg,
I've done it and it works well. I use it on difficult to clamp surfaces or where it won't work in a press. So I end up doing mostly smaller things that don't have any seams. Works real good and I haven't had problems with it, but I have no idea how hard it would be for larger surfaces. It does seem to have much better adhesion than iron on edge banding. I did read somewhere that Titebond 2 works better I used regular.
Tom

[Greg Cole]

Jamie & Thomas,
Thanks for the info.
I'm thinking about using some wider walnut (10-12") I have to try my hand at this for a shop cabinet "war chest" I'm making. It's just wide enough to do the panels and thinking the sapwood & heartwood will be a neat affect, kinda like vertically oriented flame job, LOL... No seams to deal with.
All goes well, I've maybe found an easy way to extend my curly maple stash an awful long way.
Will water soluble glues have adverse affects on MDF substrate?

Greg

[David DeCristoforo]

All of the above but for "hot iron" veneering, I have had very good results with "Better Bond" glue:

http://www.veneersupplies.com/product_info.php?products_id=59

Kind of a cross between AR and contact. You apply it like contact, let it dry and then "reactivate" the glue with heat and press it with a veneer hammer. Like AR glue, it forms a "hard" glueline" but it works much better (IMMHO) for this kind of application than TB.

YM

[Greg Cole]

Yoshikuni,
Thanks for the tip... I was thinking about working up a sample tonight. The adhesive tip is mucho appreciated.

Greg

[Peter Quinn]

Sorry Greg..Mario's veneer article is not within the last year, it appeared in issue #108, October 1994, Page 48. You can still get the article in Tauton's archives if your an online member, and I think they sell them per article too.

The article (am looking at it presently) has very specific recomendations for which temperature to set your iron for each type of PVA glue..quite a helpful primer on technique as well.

I regret the initial misinformation. I was given by a local woodworking business that closed this spring almost every FWW issue going back to the late 1970's. Starting to lose track of what I saw where.

Good luck with the veneer.

[Greg Cole]

Peter,
No worries, thanks for the info..... 1994, I was umm.... a freshman in college and not sure I even knew what wood was other than stuff I split & stacked cause Dad said so (other than the early am kind...).
Have to say... I just love this place. Where would "we" be without it huh? Seriously, a resource of resources.

Greg