Jim Ritch
Posts: 16
Joined: 2010-06-25
Location: Dahlonega, GA
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Although I am an old woodworker, I am new to veneering and probably started with a project that is a bit ambitious. The project is a small William & Mary chest with walnut veneered sides, book matched walnut burl on the top, burl on the drawer fronts, and beading around the drawer fronts (photo attached). My apologies for such a long post but I encountered several problems with this project that I am quite sure the folks on this forum can lead me to correct in the future.
My first difficulty was in cutting two pieces of burl to produce a smooth straight seam for the top of the chest. I bought a Two Cherries saw and had it sharpened. Cutting the regular walnut veneer for the case sides was a piece of cake. No such luck with the burl. Because the burl was somewhat wavy, I applied a softener which helped. I then built a trimming jig for my router, as described in Jonathan Benson's book. Using the jig with a spiral trim bit, I used a climb cut to trim off about 1/16" but could never get an edge without fraying or splintering somewhere along the cut. Had the most success by overlapping and taping the edges to be cut, much like cutting wallpaper, and cutting through both pieces with the veneer saw. My difficulty cutting the burl even caused me to alter my design. I had intended to put a contrasting veneer about 3/4" wide around the burl but abandoned that with my cutting difficulties.
My second difficulty involved the gluing of the burl on the poplar substrate of the drawer fronts (used Baltic birch plywood for chest top and sides). I decided to use Titebond's Cold Press glue because I did not want to deal with mixing and the noxious fumes. It was not clear to me how much glue to apply. I applied it with a foam roller and rolled it on so that the substrate surface was uniformly wet. Then placed the pieces in the vacuum press using the cauls as described in the Vacu-Press video. My results were mixed, in that, a couple of the drawer fronts had a few bubbles, mostly at the edges. I don't know if the bubbles developed immediately because I only noticed them when I began sanding. The only thing I can surmise is that I must not have used enough glue or I waited too long before pressing.
The third difficulty arose when routing the rabbets in the drawer front edges for the 1/8" thick beading. The rabbets for the beading are cut after the drawers are dovetailed and assembled. I was using a 5/16 spiral straight bit. It seemed as if the burl on the face of the drawers was not tightly glued at the edges. The first pass (about 1/16" on the router table resulted in the burl splintering as much as 1/2 inch. On subsequent drawers I made a scoring cut through the veneer with the veneer saw before routing which seemed to work. Again, I suspect my gluing technique because I made a spare drawer to test my cuts first and for some reason it did not splinter at all.
My final difficulty was the appearance of a few more bubbles during the finishing process (only on the drawer fronts). Unfortunately, I don't remember at which stage the bubbles appeared, although it did appear before my lacquer topcoats. The very first coat applied was an alcohol based dye, that was followed by a shellac wash coat. A water borne glaze was then applied followed by another wash coat, then an oil based glaze, another wash coat and finally my topcoats. I assumed that the shellac wash coat would seal the burl.
There were other problems encountered, such as my feeble attempts to repair the bubbles in the multi-directional grain of the burl, but I will save those for another post.
Would very much appreciate any comments/suggestions etc. I definitely have a lot to learn.
 Attached file : chest (Small).jpg (43KB - 112 downloads)
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