Shavings fires (intentional!)

[Woodwould]

I've done a few large scale marquetry jobs and I used hot sand in place of cauls. I basically made a rectangular frame on the floor out of 4" x 2"s into which I set the pre-sized substrate with the pre-sized marquetry panel taped/pinned to it. I then laid a sheet of a type of plastic film (which I can't remember the name of) over the marquetry and the entire frame.

I welded a large pan together and placed it on a makeshift BBQ of bricks and steel bars. I then heated a pile of damp sand in the pan and when it was well and truly steaming, I shoveled the hot sand on top of the plastic film. It worked perfectly on both occasions.

 

[deserter]

We used to use heated presses at my last place of work. The aluminium plates of the press were heated to around 60c normally, the only time we went hotter was for PVA which was almost never. Also if your going to use separate plates you'll also need to add something between your veneer and the plates to stop the press transferring the joint lines, we used to have a white plastic sheet specially designed for the job it was only a couple of mm thick but stopped the problem.

Just an idea but you could give underfloor heating a try although its only supposed to heat to 40 that's including passing through the flooring maybe on aluminium it will get hotter.



~Nil carborundum illegitemi~

 

[marcus]

Thanks for replies, taken me a while to read them as I had noro-virus then Christmas to content with. Christmas was worse

I've not done any hot sand veneering yet, but have a project coming up which will need it, another learning curve.....

I've decided to go with Patrick Edward's paraffin heater approach - he obviously knows his stuff, and seems simple enough. Now I just have to work out what sort of/size paraffin heater I need....

Anyway, the press is coming along nicely, hope to get it finished in the next two weeks, will post pictures....

 

[marcus]

If anyone's still interested I solved the problem of heating aluminium plates in a very boring but effective and cheap way.

I bought an old one of these off ebay:

And put it face up on the workshop floor. Then I made a couple of low trestles about 10" high and put them on either side of the heater, and laid the plates in a stack on top. I then stopped up the remaining gaps round the edge with bits of plywood, and laid a couple of blankets on top of the plates for insulation. It easily heats up three 1/2" x 2' x 3' to a heat where you need gloves to move them. Takes about 20 minutes, and the conductivity of the metal means that all the plates heat up to roughly the same temperature.

I haven't seen any sign of a fire breaking out, but it's probably best not to leave this unattended!

Heater is 2kw