Cutting Wood veneer

[Britannicus1]

Hi All -

I'm after some tips on how to cut thin wood veneers that I hope to use for inlays using my CNC router.

I've seen suggestions of gluing to my waste board for cutting, but how to unstick it again without splitting the wood - also seen double sided tape suggested - same question

Any clever Ideas welcomed

[Kitwn]

Just off the top of my head, I haven't tried this:

Glue the veneer to some scrap MDF that goes on top of the piece. Cut it out (you may have to build a small vacuum table), inlay and then machine off the MDF.

There's a cunning method using V-carve which could be adapted to suit at the link below (it says 'video' in the link but is actualy a .pdf document)

Kit

http://www.vectric.org/video/aspire4-vcp7/2d-25d-techniques/D07/VCarve_Inlay_Description_and_Procedure.pdf

[the great waldo]

Hi All -

I'm after some tips on how to cut thin wood veneers that I hope to use for inlays using my CNC router.

I've seen suggestions of gluing to my waste board for cutting, but how to unstick it again without splitting the wood - also seen double sided tape suggested - same question

Any clever Ideas welcomed

Hi Britannicus

You have two options .
1 use a vacuum table
2 cheaper Stick some masking tape down on your baseboard then stick some masking tape onto the back of your veneer ( if you have some very fine cuts you might have to reduce the stickiness of the tape that goes on the back of the veneer so that its easier to remove without breaking the part) run some super glue onto the base board tape, spray a little activator on the tape on the veneer and glue it to the tape on the baseboard. It's probably a good idea to have an overlap on the baseboard tape to be able to peel it off a little easier. This technique works for big pieces of material too. Good luck.

Cheers
Andrew

[phill05]

In the past I have used a Sandblast resist tape to cut veneers and thin glass I think it was called Venture tape it was clear view about 150mm wide with a sticky side once cut you could peel the veneer off very easy, if you had more than one veneer high to cut out you could put a tape on top and underneath cut through and then peel off.
We used it on stone and granite.

Phill

[cropwell]

I have used the method that Kit suggested. I cut straight sides with a 1mm cutter to refine the edges after pocketing out the piece with a larger cutter. the 'veneer' was cut mirror-image out of 8mm thick stock, and I think I went down 5mm. When I put the two together it was an interference fit, so I planed down the excess with a pocketting program and sanded to finish.

If you plan your work so that all corners are radiused 0.5mm, you should get a perfect fit. I did consider glueing, but the french polish held it all together nicely.

Sorry, but I can't find pictures of the finished job and the work went out as presents.

Cheers,

Rob

[Britannicus1]

I've had an idea -

Thanks for the suggestions - Not really got the finances for a vacuum table, and double sided sticky has yielded variable results (to be honest I don't think I've got the right sort on hand so I'm thinking laterally - I'm going to try an experiment based on some of your suggestions but tweaking the idea a bit. inspired by Wald and Kitwn

I'm going to glue my veneer to some thin MDF with wallpaper glue - then i can cut right through without fear of splitting - then a good wet sponge should allow me to separate the two without much force.

What do people think ?? - workable solution ???

[the great waldo]

Try the masking tape super glue trick first. It's dead easy and you can adjust how sticky it is on the veneer by dabbing it with your thumb or use low tack tape. The plus side of this system is that you can separate the tape from the part off the backboard. I'm not sure about wetting the veneer too much as it may well change it's shape.
Cheers Andrew

[Kitwn]

Would soaking the veneer with water when you dissolve the glue lead to swelling/shrinking that ruins the accurate sizing of the piece? Only experiments will show.

There are plenty of ideas for cheap and cheerful vacuum tables for small areas. Worth a google before you decide that's not an affordable option.

[Adrian_S]

Try something like dopping wax or sealing wax to hold the veneer down to a waste-board, then after cutting, use a hot-air gun to soften the wax.

[Britannicus1]

Try something like dopping wax or sealing wax to hold the veneer down to a waste-board, then after cutting, use a hot-air gun to soften the wax.

That might work - going to wax it all in the end anyway - going to try the tape thing one more time too

[the great waldo]

hi Britannicus

Watch out that you don't cut too deep past the veneer as the only problem I envisage is the tape rucking up the cutter, I thank thats going to depend on what kind of cutter your using. I think in this case a downcut cutter would work best.
Cheers
Andrew