bradleyheathhays

Yeah, I've gotten a lot of advice elsewhere but nothing rock solid. I just found a good local source for flat 1/8" baltic birch plywood so I'll start experimenting with that.

Thanks for the questions Eric. It's basically a marquetry type project where I'll be using veneer pieces to 'paint' a larger picture. It'd take some time to describe it all but I'll just say it's a unique process that won't be able to take advantage of traditional marquetry techniques. If I didn't mention before these veneer sheets will be put into a CNC laser cutter, which means the thinner and flatter the better.

I've got this unusual project going on where I'm trying to produce what I'll call veneer wafers. I'm getting raw veneer from mbveneer.com and the goal is to back it with something very thin for support and to have it come out of the clamps perfectly flat, and as thin as possible. Instead of using the pricey stuff I'm first practicing with maple veneer from Woodcraft and using backer from Flagg that I've been told is phenolic, if anyone is familiar with that company; Wilsonart just bought them. So last night I mate up some .025" backer (pictured below, about 1/3 the thickness of the quarter) with some .020" maple veneer using Unibond800 modified urea resin glue in my newly arrived (!) vacuum bag press. The glue was spread with a 1/16th notched glue spreader, so not too thick but it definitely could've been thinner. After pressing overnight it comes out this morning and immediately curls, and gets more curled with time. The obvious first change in this process to see if I can get the veneer flattened would be to veneer both sides of the backer, which I'll be doing tonight. I got 4" glue roller along with the vacuum bag press so I'll try that out tonight instead of the glue spreader and see what happens. I'd say the glue will go on quite a bit thinner using the roller. So my question is...what other methods and materials should I look into to produce this ever-elusive veneer wafer I'm after? I don't have any experience using rubber cement but if a form of that could be evenly applied with maybe a spray gun or something I think that might be a process to explore. I'm all ears.

The title says it all. Typing 'veneer backer paper' into google hardly yields a thing. I'd like to find 30-40 mil if possible. Thanks for any leads. EDIT: I've just learned applying actual veneer backer paper requires temps and pressures no achievable by a home practitioner. So what other ways can I take a raw veneer and make it flat using modified urea resin glue (arriving soon)? I've been told using a cheaper veneer as a backer works as well. Any other paper-like options out there?

I'm gonna apply a sheet of 1/42" Maple veneer to a 1/8" sheet of Basswood and see if I can cut it with a CNC laser. How do I go about applying the veneer without the sheet curling after the glue cures? Is there any adhesive I can use that won't make the piece curve? I could apply veneers to both sides but I'm trying to avoid doing that. My local public library's maker's space has a CO2 Epilog Laser Cutter and I've just taken a class on operating the thing I'll be giving that a go soon...cutting shapes out of the veneer on basswood combo. The goal is to cut fast enough that the veneer doesn't have any burn residue on the top. The side edge doesn't matter much. Actually, what kind of spray finish can I give my veneered sheets before putting them under the laser so that sooty debris will just wipe off? No gloss or color change is wanted at all. Just a good protective finish.

Title says it all. One...is there any way to preserve the colors of rainbow poplar? and Two...how faded does rainbow poplar get when it's exposed to the sun?

Hey there once again. My daytime job finds me at my buddy's 'cabinet shop' where no actual woodworking is done. We're a cabinet supplier with a little warehouse space to hold contractors' and clients' orders. We can order cabinets either built or flat pack unassembled. Over the last couple years working there I've asked a few contractors how much different the pricing would be if they got their cabinets unassembled instead of assembled...and most of them said they'd save about 50%. 100% of our contractors order them built btw. Building them is crazy easy but everybody opts to pay thousands more to have us put their cabinets together. A wall cabinet takes about 10 min to assemble and an average base about 15 min. We just delivered 20k worth of kitchen and bathroom cabinets to my other buddy's contract built house; it was about 32 cabinets altogether. If we were to have put together these same cabinets it would've taken us about a full day. So you see where I'm getting to here? Why don't I advertise myself to contractors as the guy who's been building their cabinets for the last two years and see if they're willing to order unassembled, save a ton of money and pay me maybe half of what extra they would've spent? Sounds like a win win huh? So my question is...what issues aren't I seeing yet with my idea? My contractor buddy who's helping me work on developing this says he doesn't think contractors will want to get into the minutia of adding a different step to the process they've already settled into...building houses the way they do. The way he put it is that contractors want to know one 'cabinet guy' who gets it all done from design to supply to installation. Almost all the contractors we deliver to also use our company's two installers, and my idea would make things a little bumpier for them. I'm sure lots of contractors in my city of 330k population have their own installers but my contractor buddy says that good installers are few and far in between. Of course, all I see is a big chunk of change to be made, for both me and the contractors, and I think they'll be interested in hearing about my idea. Any thoughts? Thanks as always.

I'm working with a local artist to develop an idea I've had over the last year. Have you ever seen what's known as a photo collage? It's where hundreds of small pictures are put together, side by side in rows and columns so that they make a larger picture when viewed as a whole. Those photos are always made by software. We'll I'm trying to do basically the same thing except with small wood blocks. The idea is that I'm to make a lot of different small wood squares, I'll say instead of blocks, and the artist puts them together to make a larger picture. The smaller the block the higher resolution the final image will be, just like the pixels on your tv. So, with all this in mind, my goal is to find wood with unique color patterns. After thinking on it for a long time I'm sure just regularly grained wood would be suitable for this new process, and so I've just been sitting on this idea for a minute, until I went to the lumber yard for the first time after having this idea and found cedar! As it turns out cedar can have very unusual color patterns when it's milled down as compared to other wood species. So now my idea is a little more developed, thank heavens. So now I've got a couple questions. I see now how finding wood species with a sharp contrast in color between the sap and hardwoods would work well in my process. Is there any other species out there that has such sharp contrast between the sap and heart wood like cedar? Walnut, maybe, is the only other that comes to mind. Second question...how many ways are there to change the color of cedar. Staining, applying aging solutions are the only two ways I know of, and have very little experience with either, so I don't know what products are out there. So the idea is I want to be able to produce as many variations of color using cedar as possible. What ways are there to color cedar that I haven't thought of yet? Many thanks!

I have an idea for something new that I want to make and if I can find someone who sells these particular parts it would make going into production so much easier. I'll picture them below but the two parts I'm interested in is the leg of an older style chair as well as the top back brace. The leg has a good bend to it and the top brace is 'bent' as well and tapers from the bottom to the top. Any idea where I should start looking to find these parts? Thanks. PS. Sorry, I kept getting 'file size too large' when I was uploading so I had to cut out most of my pictures to get them to send. PPS. In the case these parts aren't commercially available how I would go about making them? .

Hey everybody. I'm in the heart of horse country here in Kentucky and I'm lucky enough to have some inroads to some prominent farms. Basically my buddies on these farms know I'm a woodworker and are saying 'show me what ya got.' Secret thing is...I don't really have that much (shhh). Recently I made the garden obelisk pictured below and put it on my buddy's property. What I'd really like to get into is making things, anything they might want for the farms themselves. Does anyone have pictures or ideas about what kind of ornamental structures would be appropriate for horse farms? I don't imagine I could provide anything actually functional because all that stuff is already covered (I assume) so the best place for me to aim is 'ornamental.' I brought the below pictured obelisk out to my buddy's farm but the only place it looked right was in the house yard. I'm def open to your suggestions as to what make and entertain my buddies with. Thanks a ton! PS. I think I spoke too soon because I've already had someone suggest great things I can make that actually ARE useful to daily operations. I suppose I'm thinking along the lines of something one farm owner would see and think, hey, I want that on my farm. I'm thinking something unique, but anything that would sell works for me.

I'm learning to use this new gravity fed HVLP paint gun and I'm afraid I didn't thin my paint down enough for my first test run. You can see the cheapo paint gun I got myself from Amazon in the pic. Don't worry, the inside is cleaner than the outside. I thinned down some Killz 3 using about 5% water and load it into the cup (still about the same viscosity though), set the regulator to 22 lbs dynamic pressure (the pressure reading when the trigger is open), and start spraying. The trigger rod (as I'll call it) is dialed all the way back so the trigger goes full open and the fan adjustment knob on the side is about at half. So I go to spray the Killz and this is all I get (pic). I adjusted the fan knob through it's entire range, all the way small to all the way fanned out, same spitting pattern. Basically I try all adjustments on the gun and can't get anything other than the same spit pattern. So last thing I try is upping the pressure at the regulator, and still the exact same pattern. Does this mean my paint is simply too thick and I need to thin it down more?

Thanks yeah it's got the potential to turn out really nice.

I've just begun collaborating with a local artist who wants to make a fairly large mural out of wood. The idea we've come up with is to design impressionistic type pieces based on arranging square wood blocks into the larger image. The plan is to develop different finishing techniques for the blocks to give them different color intensities, contrasts between the grain, and overall color. The blocks will be used as 'pixels' if you will in the larger image, so the smaller the wood block the higher the resolution of the final image. I would imagine the blocks will be between 1 and 2" square. The idea is mine but I'd never be able to do this without an artist. She'll be doing the true 'art' part and I'll just be providing as wide a variety of finishes on these blocks as possible. The wider her variety of wood blocks to choose from the better the end result will be. So as an example, here's an art piece I found on Etsy. It seems the artist here has either baked or burn treated these pieces. I'm taking this idea as inspiration on how I can vary the finishes on these wood blocks. But I'd like to have as many coloring/finishing options as possible, which is the purpose of writing here. pic here What I need now are both wood species suggestions and finishing techniques. Just brainstorming so everything's on the table. I need different wood grain size options. Need both wider and narrower grained species. Would be nice to have a species where both the fast and slow growth rings take dye stain so they have the same hue. Need coloring / technique suggestions. I've used General Finishes water based dye stains before so that's one idea for generating color. Thanks for your ideas.

To make a long story short, I've got to make two Adirondack chairs out of Red Oak and have them ready, painted and presented by Christmas. I've been told by soo many people how bad Red Oak would be for soaking up water and that they'd have to be repainted almost every year, but I have no time to get a more proper species so I'll have to go with what I've got. I'm writing to ask what I can do to make these chairs weather a little better. I've been told to coat the bottom of the legs with epoxy and that would help stave off water absorption. Does anyone have specific advice on how to do this? I've worked with two part epoxies plenty before now so this isn't totally unfamiliar territory. I'm assuming thinner epoxy would be better. The chairs will be sitting on concrete so maybe that'll help. I've also been told to paint all the parts separately before putting them together, and that this would help with not absorbing water as well. Any other advice on what I can do to help these chairs weather better? Thanks

I'm just starting off on my first two commissioned pieces, two of Mr. King's very fine Adirondack chairs. I visited this particular local lumber yard this past weekend as I thought they had some Eastern Red Cedar that would've worked well, but since it was only 4/4 I ended up going with their 6/4 Red Oak as that's what the owner suggested. I haven't seen anyone make one of these chairs out of Oak yet so I hope I haven't shot myself in the foot here. These things are gonna be SO heavy, but I guess that's why they have wheels. Since I've never worked with anything this dense before I thought I'd write to ask about the ins and outs of working with this heftier wood. I've got some good machines to help get it done... table saw, router table w/ lift, thickness planer, jointer, band saw, belt sander, part templates, etc. So no excuse I can't make this happen! I've read some instances where these chairs can rack so I'm concerned using a heavier wood will make them more prone. These are both to be painted solid white (filling all screw holes with dowels) and I'm wondering if the liberal use of glue in all the joints would help any with it's rigidity. I haven't seen the idea mentioned one way or the other. I'd be glad to go through the extra effort of using glue but I'm actually thinking that it might not do a joint any good where the two surfaces weren't previously machined to meet each other exactly flat. Also, I'm wondering about the finish coats. The clients are requesting white, and because they're well traveled they're imagining the Adirondack chairs they've seen at high end country clubs and they're wanting something that resembles those... and all I know to do is ask the pimple face kid at the HD paint desk for something exterior grade. Should I just do a color coat or do some kind of clear as well? I just don't know how this is best done for exterior furniture. I'd actually like to get some kind of paint gun and give that a go since I've got a big enough compressor to push one now. Here's what I'm looking to make... All advice appreciated.