THE FLOATING TOP SIDE TABLE

THE SKINNY ON VENEERING

Welcome to the versatile world of veneering! Though we will go into greater detail throughout the rest of the book (as well as explaining in the rest of this chapter what you can veneer and why you should), I want to start you off on the basics. At heart, veneering is fairly simple—you need a substrate (what the veneer is attached to), veneer (the pretty face of your piece), glue (how you attach it), and pressure (to keep everything in place while the glue sets). Each of those four elements can be manipulated, and other components added to the mix, to create some pretty neat projects.

A B

Veneer can be store bought or homemade; rotary cut or flat sliced in various ways; and made of any wood species from the plainest to the most exotic. It can be book matched, slip matched, joined into bigger sheets, or sliced into edging. You can adhere it with white glue, yellow glue, hot hide glue, or specialty veneer glues—you can even apply glue ahead of time, let it dry, and then iron it to reactivate the glue and adhere it to the substrate. Glue veneer to substrates of metal, MDF, or plywood using clamps, tape, presses, vacuum bags, or whatever weights (or heavy books!) you have around the house.

The General Steps of Veneering

A Substrate: Prepare the substrate by cutting it to size. B Veneer: Prepare the veneer by softening and flattening it, if needed. If your project requires a larger piece of veneer, you’ll create a straight and flat joint by removing any bumps on the edges to be joined; use blue masking tape to temporarily hold the joint on the glue side of the veneer, then apply veneer tape to the show side. C Glue: If the glue you’re using needs to be mixed or heated, do so. Apply the glue using the appropriate tools: hot hide glue is brushed on and then hammered (squeegeed); most other glues are squeezed or spread on, then rolled out with a brayer. D Pressure: Apply the veneer and add pressure with whatever sort of clamps or pressing you prefer. Add cauls that spread pressure to specific directions, angles, and curves as needed. Note that any assembled panels that are glued up flat or under vacuum will need to have complete air circulation around them

for 24 hours to fully dry.