Fixing Veneer Bubbles and Related Topics

Let me be the first to admit that doing 12 veneered panels of varying sizes for the Angle Madness project in my shop is kinda no fun.  Takes all the available space between bags, work tables, "veneer flattening areas", and places to aerate the finished panels until they finish curing.  Plus at night when I'd think, "oh, time to go make another panel", I had flashbacks of the movie "Groundhog Day" only without the fun of ice carving.

All the burl panels came out great; only one has a bubble on it so we'll go repair it and talk about a couple other related topics including an experiment I did with some of the remaining scrap veneer to see how fine a gap you can get away with during a glue-up.

I've scraped and sanded all but this last panel now so we can move on to looking at the drawer webbing and back column.



Hope the weather in your area is starting to feel more like shop weather!


As an aside, I've been playing with different aspects of the video process to see how to fix some things I don't like about the current process.  One night while in the shop taking some test video, I saw a baby Gecko on one of the panels of the garage door:

It was fun to watch her scurry around looking for the smallest bugs that were attracted by the lights in the shop.  I say 'her' cuz I'm not seeing anything to say 'him', but I don't know Gecko parts well!

The interesting thing is that a friend of mine posted a similar shot to Facebook taken from their house window at very nearly the same time.  Two people replied with photos taken that same night.  An interesting coincidence!

Felt like scooping her up and putting her in the backyard; the ants this year are amazing... she'll be the size of a cow in no time!

Angle Madness! - Veneering the 4-Way Bookmatch

In this episode, I work on the Maple burl panels that will adorn the tops of the drawer tiers.  Each is will be book-and-end matched more often called "4-way bookmatched".  However, as we discussed in the last episode, I'm placing the burl cloud to the outside edges of the panels, which adds an extra step in the second set of bookmatches of the "4-way".  You can see the burl cloud on these two panels.

We'll talk about testing for bubbles; I have one I found tonight on a burl panel; I'll roll a short video this weekend showing the repair.

The end of the video has a high-speed start-to-finish glue-up of the panel to act as a bit of a check-list for doing a panel glue-up in a vacuum press.  Easy to do, but I was surprised when I started annotating it just how many steps there are.

I was recruited to dog-sit for 3 weeks while my mom goes up to Canada to enjoy cool weather.  I thought maybe these two could be efficient "Pavlovian Veneer Tape Hydration Units"... I even had a dinner bell!  But they look a little useless in the shop. -sigh- just use the regular dispenser I guess...


...and because I know someone will ask :)  the tape on the pinky isn't because of a shop accident!  Went to stop a high clearing pass and it was a harder faster shot than I expected.  Right on the tip of the nail!  By the end of the game, the glove was a little messy.  I didn't work on the panels at all that week because odds are I would have 'stained' them just like all my keyboards now :-/  But... we won!  :)

By the way, High-Friction Guard Wrap from Lee Valley is absolutely fantastic for wrapping a dinged-up finger like this.  Sticks to itself, can be repeatedly removed and applied, breaths nicely, and doesn't slip.  Even if you don't plan on inadvertently stopping a puck with your finger nail, I'd highly recommend getting a roll both for its shop function of giving you better grip, but also as a top-shelf bandage wrap.

Angle Madness! - Veneering the Panels

This was a time-consuming episode to get together!  A lot going on!

In this episode, we'll veneer the panels for the drawer tiers.  I want to do the panels now so I can determine the size of the drawer webbing that will be between the panels in each tier.  And also, it is time consuming to go through 12 panels (cuz I'm making 2 units) so while I do some of the panels, I can be making progress on laying out the webbing.

This episode is longer than most because I try to go through everything.  If you've done some veneering, some parts will make excellent bathroom breaks.  But if you haven't, you'll get to see it all including some design decisions at the end for how to do the book-and-end match (4-way bookmatch) of the Maple burl.



A reference Paul Schürch often in the video as most everything I know of veneering and marquetry came from his DVDs and workshop.  Sure, there were other books, but they only confirmed what I learned.  Here, I reviewed the workshop I took with Paul Schürch; give that entry a look for details on his DVDs, which are fantastic.

Next up, preparing the drawer tiers for the panels, figuring out the drawer webbing, and... oh, yeah, there's a column in the back and some Nickel-plated rods!  hmm...  :)

Thanks for watching and thanks for the patience on these longer sections!