Veneering a Live Edge Board

[Jan Bianchi]

I have four long, wide boards of African Rosewood (from 36" to 72" long and 10-14 inches wide, 1 7/16" thick) with beautiful live edges that I want to use for the shelves of a bookcase. I don't have enough to make a solid wood bookcase so I want to make the shelves out of veneer. I propose to cut off the live edges about 2 inches back on the table saw and then resaw 1/8" slices off each board leaving 7/8" boards for the case construction. After veneering the top of the flitch as the show side to MDF, I would domino and edge glue the live edge back on to the veneered board so that I will have boards that look like they are live edge boards on one side. I have a Laguna 13-12 bandsaw with a 3/4" blade, but I'm a novice to resawing long boards and have only used commercial veneers in the past.

I've been trying to figure out what is going to go wrong with this. I'm guessing the live edge piece might bow once it's released from the board and be hard to glue back on flat, but if that happens I guess I'll have to abandon the idea of live edge. What am I forgetting or not seeing in this and can you suggest a better approach?

Second, I've tested my bandsaw on a piece of spruce, and it cuts a nice piece of veneer, but I don't know how smooth it should be. It look pretty good to me but you can see little ridges--bandsaw blade marks on it. I've attached a picture, though I'm not sure it's good enough to show you if it is smooth enough. I can run the board through the planer after each cut so I have one really flat glue side but maybe it would easier to put it through the drum sander. If so to what grit?

Spruce Veneer.jpg

[Kevin Jenness]

This is definitely doable. Bear in mind that your wide boards are going to be problematic. Resawing wider than 8" usually is, in terms of blade control, power and cupping of the veneers. I am not familiar with your saw, but it sounds a bit light. The rosewood will doubtless saw with more difficulty than spruce. You will probably have the best results if you rip your boards in half after removing the live edge, and rejoint the leaves for width prior to layup . I usually make sequential cuts with the bandsaw if the sawing is going well and then run the leaves through a wide belt sander at 80#. That gives an even thickness for pressing. If your sawing is very accurate you could get away without surfacing the glue face, and sand after pressing. If you go with your plan of surfacing between bandsaw cuts your drum sander will be much safer than the planer when the pieces get thin. I would recommend a final veneer thickness of no more than 3/32", and a rigid glue like PPR or epoxy.

[John C Bush]

Hi Jan,
I have a new Woodmaster CT since I saw(oops) you last year and can resaw to 14"s. Give me a call and we can practice cutting veneer on some other hardwoods I have. Thanks. John.

[Chris Padilla]

Your plan sounds reasonable to me. Try a few more test pieces. It might even be a good idea to pick up a piece of poplar about the size of your pricier wood and practice with it on your bandsaw so that you are sure you've got the bandsaw tuned to the nines and that you get your technique down. Maybe you need to set up some feather boards or some extra infeed/outfeed tables. Also, you'll want to see what kind of yield you'll get from the resawing so that you can calculate more closely the amount of veneers you'll end up with and the final thickness of the leftover/carcass boards.

You'll likely need to (again, depends on your bandsaw, blade, technique, setup, etc.) plane your board between each run through the bandsaw so that you always have one clean face.

You may find that you'll want to go thinner on your veneer if your yield is too low with 1/8" slices.

For example, I sliced 3/32" veneers off a walnut slab of similar size to your rosewood and then drum sanded them down to 1/16" and veneered with that. If you practice your technique and setup and dial in the bandsaw tight and have a good sharp blade, you might be able to do the same. I've even heard of some guys taking slices off the bandsaw that were basically ready to be veneered! I wasn't quite that good but I was happy with my results. You can see the results here in my tansu build thread.

I usually used 80 or 100 grit on the drum sander.

[Jan Bianchi]

Hi John.

I sent you an email a couple of days ago about this, along with pictures of my maple coffee table. Did you get it? I've been reading up on resaw jigs for wide pieces of wood and would be delighted to get together and practice this with you. Congrats on your new Woodmaster. I'm hoping my new Laguna 14-12 will let me do this as well. Anyway, I'll give you a call.

Jan

[Jan Bianchi]

Thank you for your response. I will try cutting a board wide, but follow your suggestion if I have trouble. My new Laguna is actually 14-12, not 13-12, but I realize it is not as big as some resaw bandsaws.