If the cut faces of your veneer are relatively sooth, you can usually just glue that side directly down to your saw string giving you a nice smooth surface on the top. But if the surface is a little bit rough like mine is you want to do a little sanding before the glue up.
I allowed for that extra bit of sanding when I set my fence to an 8th of an inch. The best toll for this job is the drum sander. If you do not have one, you should try to find a friend that does and if that is not feasible then I recommend investing in premium quality blade so that you will get the cleanest cut possible.
Personally, I like cutting my veneer sheets just a little bit at an 8th of an inch and then sanding down at exactly 3 32nd of an inch. It takes a little bit longer but I tend to get a little bit more consistent results that way.
Once we have all of our veneer cut and sanded, we need to think about the lay out. Most cases, you need to join multiple sheets together in order to get the width that we are after.
Remember the triangle that we drew on the edge earlier? When we reassemble our pieces, we should be able to use that triangle as a reference guide for the order. It is very important for design reasons to keep these sheets in order.
Since each sheet has nearly identical rain patters, we can come up with some pretty cool designs depending on which where we face our sheets when joining them. Let us cover the two most common arrangements.
The first pattern is called the Book Match. You simply turn one sheet over like a page on a book and glue the two pieces together. The result in pattern is what it looks like in mirror image.
The second pattern is called the Slip Match. None of the pieces get flipped; they are just places side by side. This is a good pattern for really wide panels.
Once we have the pattern we are looking for, all we need to do is glues these guys together to make them into one solid sheet. It is actually easier than it looks. All you need is a little bit of blue tape.
Using a lot of finger pressure, I stretch the tape across the joint and press it down firmly on the show side of the veneer. I usually place a piece of finger tape every six to eight inches.
Then I run a single strip of tape across the length of the joint. Now I flip the board over and make a little Vocabulary shaped tent. This opens up the joint giving me a nice channel for a bit of glue. Then flatten the board, wipe away the squeeze out and place another piece of tape along the length of the joint.
I also like to use a wooden seam roller to make sure that joint is nice and flat. Now if you happen to notice a gap along the joint line, have no fear, a gentle pass or two over the joiner will solve the problem.
Believe it or not, that is all there is in cutting your own veneer. You may run into a few snags here and there but if you bandsaw is set-up properly and your wood is flat and square, the resawing process should go quite smoothly.
Just a quick tip, be sure to wax the bandsaw table and the fence thoroughly. That will make your life a whole lot easier as you push the wood through the blade.
So the next step would be to glue this veneer sheet into a sub-straight but that is a topic for another show. Personally I think veneering is a technique that we should all learn.
Whether you use commercial or home sawn veneer, your design options expand dramatically when you begin to incorporate veneer into your work. It is a great way to get the most out of you tools, your wood supply, and your craft.
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