Veneer

The furniture making course is taking up most of my time at the moment. The last week or so we’ve been looking at veneering and various methods of sticking veneer to a substrate. Here are some pics:

Very effective but the animal based glue is messy and not great for a vegetarian.

We did some other stuff using PVA glue and a vacuum bag. Much cleaner!

Here is an example of what can be done with veneer and inlay. Sarah, one of the second term students, produced this cool table top

Tabletop with bog oak veneer and brass inlay

The culmination of the first term is to produce a small box with a curved lid and houndstooth dovetails. We get a bit of scope to vary the design so I’ve added a drawer in the front to add a bit more challenge.

In preparation for the box project we’ve been doing some laminating and bending. This is achieved by layering up construction veneer or flexi-ply over a curved former. Add the right sort of glue between the layers and stick the whole thing in a vacuum press.

I finally did some work in the garage. I’d already cut the mortise and tenons in the legs and rails but they weren’t seating very neatly. The little engineers square that I bought recently proved invaluable in getting the shoulders square so they now seat much better.

I cut 6mm groves in the rails with my Record 044 plough plane. The grooves will accept the end of the panels and the ebony square lines. Then I planed the panels down to 6mm so they slotted neatly into the grooves.