wood veneering.

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jonny boy

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Hello all,

I wonder if anyone has any suggestions on the best method of adhesion for veneering? I have done loads of laminating with formica's and I use a sprayable contact adhesive for that. I was going to go the same route for the veneer but wonder wether to use the iron on hot melt sheets instead. Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Jonathan.
 
Hi jonny boy,

No expert here, but I was shown a veneering technique with contact adhesive some years ago. The salient point seemed to be. " The veneer may well shrink, across the width, as the adhesive dries. Leave it un-trimmed overnight during drying. " I suspect this is as a result of the rubbing/hammering down process. Thanks to a good bloke Charles, 'The Veneer King', for that one.

Hope it helps,

xy
 
Normal white pva watered down will be best as it dries clear and give you time to work with it contact adhesive will give you no time to work.

You should check out Andrew Crawford box making books although they show you how to make boxes he gives you the all the information with veneering, French polishing.

I have both his books and they are excellent.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. Has anyone actually used the hot melt sheets? They seem to be sold by a lot of veneer suppliers and they would also give me a little more workabilty than i'd get with contact adhesive.

Jon.
 
Yes Jonny I've used hot melt glue. It works well, especially on small areas. For large areas I would go for PVA in a press. Have tried animal glue and that was a disaster, even though lots say it is the best way of glueing veneers.

Paul
 
Hot-melt glue is good stuff so long as you are really sure you've got the heat into it, otherwise bits can lift off later when you're finishing. PVA glue has worked great on flat surfaces for me when I can get it into a bag

Aidan
 
I use a press and PVA for veneering, I got a fantastic press made by a guy in St.Albans.

John Brown makes presses of various sizes and normally keeps certain sizes in stock, but if anything out of the ordinary he would have to make.

John's e mail address is [email protected]

I think he still makes them but you will have to check, I bought my press about three years ago, they really do a great job unless you are going to veneer large items, Then Bagpress of Letchworth are the people to go to.

Mooeee
 
Another way I have used with some success. Is heat and PVA. A good coat of glue and then heat with an iron to cure. Works a treat if you can't get a press in. And a lot cheaper than hot melt glue sheets.
The Tiddles said PVA works will on flat surfaces. I have used it to veneer some quadrant posts
columns.jpg
.

Veneerpress.jpg

I made a rough mould out of wood, lined it with that thin sheet expanded polistyreen, stuff you use for packing worked well.
cabinet3.jpg

Paul
 
I use a D3 PVA adhesive which is highly water resistant...very important for cleaning off the veneer tape afterwards. Pressing is done in an AirPress which is a really good bit of kit - Rob
 
Cascamite (has various other names, Polymite from Axminster) is my favourite, don't know how you'd go about veneering a large panel without a press but for smaller bits it's pretty straightforward. I veneered with PVA before then French polished over it and it softens the PVA so now there's bubbles... Might no have used enough glue or something, did it at college
 
(I) wonder wether to use the iron on hot melt sheets?

Dry the veneer with the iron immediately before using these sheets, otherwise the veneer will shrink and split after it has adhered.

Jeff
www.amgron.clara.net
 
I think you're maybe meant to spray the veneer before you iron it as well to cancel out the shrinkage from the iron. Never tried it before though :D
 
Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I really believe the sprayable contact will be possible though. I have seen a spiral staircase that was veneered using the contact method and it's impossible to see any seams unless knowing where they are and close up. If nobody can give any certain reason for not using it, I think i'll try it on a sample board first and give it a go.
Cheers,
Jonathan.
 
Jonathon, I do quite a lot of veneering. Depending on the situation I'll use traditional hide glue with a veneer hammer, iron-on glue film, PVA with a press, or vacuum bagging. The one technique I almost never use is contact adhesive.

In fact I'd only ever use contact adhesive for either very small pieces of wood veneer where it would be difficult to apply pressure while PVA was setting, or if applying an artificial non-porous laminate. The two main reasons are that wood veneers are rarely, if ever, truly flat, which means it's all too easy to end up with wrinkles. And secondly there's the problem of lining up the veneer and the ground accurately enough.

Mind you, I've never veneered a spiral staircase and faced with a challenge like that I can see the atrraction of contact adhesive! However, for more modest projects I'd strongly recommend iron-on glue film. Where iron-on glue film becomes tricky is if you're joining sections of veneer for say a book matched effect. But even quite large single pieces of veneer can be successfully applied with this method if you break the work piece down into seperate "quadrants" and tackle them one at a time.

I find one of the most important tips for iron-on glue film is figuring out a way of cooling the work piece quickly after you've ironed it. This makes the glue film set sufficiently to hold the veneer down and prevent blisters. One way of achieving this is to use a metal plane (with the blade withdrawn of course!) to go over the veneer after the iron, chilling the plane in the fridge before hand makes this technique even more effective.
 
Hi, Thanks for the suggestions again. I must say, the contact adhesive i'll be using isn't the spread on stuff out of a tin, it's a sprayable one that comes in 17kg cannister. It comes out like a fine web and sticks like s*!t to a blanket. The veneer should arrive tommorow and i'm going to try the underside of the table first and see how I go. By the way, can you use any small vucuum pump for a bag press? They seem stupidly expensive when you can buy vacuum pumps (without the pipes and bag) for as little as £60.

Jon.
 
jonny boy":2wf7is1s said:
By the way, can you use any small vucuum pump for a bag press? They seem stupidly expensive when you can buy vacuum pumps (without the pipes and bag) for as little as £60.

Jon.

I'm not sure about "any" pump, but for occasional use you can certainly get by without a specialist pump.

The additional money you'd spend with Airpress for example is because you could run the pump continuously, it'll pull a little extra vacuum (which translates into a bit more pressure on the workpiece), you could operate a very large bag, or there's connectors allowing you to run two bags off one pump.

When I first tried vacuum press veneering I used a cheap pump quite happily for a year or two before moving on to a specialist pump.
 

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