Don Stephan
Posts: 825
Joined: 2003-07-18
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
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Interesting situation posed by veneering an MDF sculpture stand, say 16" x 12" by 30" high. (The joints are all mitered 45 degrees, and the stand glued using urea formaldehyde and Collins spring clamps.)
Press opposing 16" wide sides in bag, let cure overnight, then have to flush the veneer edges to the box surface before veneering the other pair of sides. There is always glue squeezeout, and just out of the vacuum bag is still "gummy", and not easy to cut with veneer saw because the glue tends to grab the blade.) By morning the squeezeout is quite hard, and very difficult to cut with the veneer saw. The hard glue would quickly dull a block plane blade. But if not handled carefully the surface of the veneer can chip back beyond the edge of the box.
The only solution I've found was to get a 2nd veneer saw and tape a piece of grey cardboard to the back of the blade as a spacer. The saw now doesn't cut as much of the dried glue against the box, and cuts the veneer about 1/16" proud of the box. Then I gently sand the veneer and dried glue flush with the box using 80 grit self-stick paper on a piece of MDF.
This is a very tedious process, and there is always the potential for the surface of the veneer chipping back beyond the edge of the box. Another possible solution is a flush trimming bit in a trim router, but the dried glue would likely be very hard on the cutting edge. A 3rd possible solution would be to trim the excess veneer close on the table saw, but there would be a strong possibility of chipping the veneer.
This isn't a common situation, but it does arise from time to time and I'm curious how others handle it.
Thanks in advance for your input.
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