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I am wanting to do my own veneer purfling layups.Can you guys tell me what glue to use and how you process to keep it flat and consistant? TIA

Keith,

I have only done this once, but my method was painless and effective.

First, I made pieces of veneer for the purfling (I resaw my own and run it through a thickness sander). The purfling veneers ended up 6" wide by a few inches longer than my sides by .030" thick. I also tried some that were about .015" thick, and those were nice too.

Then I took the material that I used for binding and cut that into slabs 6" wide by a few inches longer than my sides by however thick they needed to be to make .25" after I added the thickness of the purfling veneers.

Then I slopped on some Titebond III, which I normally don't use, on all of the veneers sandwiched together with the binding slab on top. I stuffed it in my vacuum press and left it overnight.

After 24 hours, I sliced strips off the binding/purfling slab that were a hair over 1/8" thick and ran them throug the thickness sander to get rid of the bandsaw marks.

Then I stuck them in the side bender, and everything came out beautifully. The Titebond III seems to work well in the bender --- it gets pretty flexible under heat and moisture, which allows the wood to bend, but not so flexible that it comes apart. The results were very good.

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks Kelby that gives me some good ideas. Did you use a sled to sand the veneers?

Keith, I used a sled. When you get down to 15-30 thousandths on my sander, the drum starts sanding the feed roller without a sled. (Speaking of which, I need to get myself a new feed roller . . . .)

Another thing you may want to think of to get veneer flat is Nordy's Veneer Treatment, sold at Rockler in the US. Rockler part # 58446. I'm not sure if it is pure glycerine (which you could probably get at a lot of places), or if there are other additives.

I had some brittle, potato-chip textured, quilted maple veneer that was intended for a furniture project. I soaked the veneer in that stuff, and pressed it between nylon screens with layers of newspaper and particle board on both sides. I changed the newspaper a couple of times, once a day later, and then again 2 days later (to make sure I didn't get mold.)

The veneer ended up flat, and almost leathery in texture - the brittleness was completely gone. It worked perfectly, and is now part of an entertainment center.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Thanks Guys all very helpful.