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Normally I would publish an article that relates to the video posted here that would include details not covered in the video. This time we are only going to publish a link to an excellent article that is posted on the West Wind Hardwood website entitled The Art of Buying Lumber by Dick Burrows.
It is far more detailed and extensive than what I can publish and is a great resource for people who want to get the best value and products from their wood purchases. Click HERE for that link, it will open in a new window, and don't forget, they do Ship Wood so if you are looking for something special to highlight a project or add some special detailed woods, send them a request for quote on some wood delivered to your door ...
As more information or links come along that relate to this topic, we will publish them also. Until then, our thanks again to West Wind Hardwood for giving us their time and expertise to help all of our viewers become more knowledgeable in their lumber purchases.
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Who wants free wood? Pretty much anyone who does woodworking right! Well, there is a catch, like anything else that is free. What I am talking about using Pallet Lumber. All over the world there are free pallets, and some of them have some great wood. I was so intrigued with collecting and re-cycling pallet wood at one time in my life, I wrote a business plan for starting up a Pallet Furniture Manufacturing business. What I discovered was, there is often a lot of waste in trying to salvage pallet wood, there is a big cost in acquisition (finding the pallets), the wood is extremely hard on all woodworking tools, particularly jointers and planers because of all the ground in dirt and small rocks. But for individual woodworkers who are aware of the problems of working with pallet woods, there can still be many rewards.
During the process of writing the business plan, I had the opportunity to collect and break down pallets into useable wood, and I tried many different methods of breaking down or disassebling the pallets. This video represents what I found was the easiest and most effective way of breaking pallets down ....
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The next step after understand HOW veneering works, is to try it, and in this video, that's what we have done. To show a bit more about what veneering is all about we actually too three bookmatched sheets of veneers and attached them with veneering tape. The process is quite simple, but being able to watch a video of it being done is much easier than try to explain it.
After attaching the sheets and preparing a back sheet as well (all veneering works best when veneering is done on BOTH sides of the substrate). The next step is simple, coat ALL sides to be glues together with a coating of veneer glue. All glues have what is called an Open Time, which simply means how long the glue can be exposed to air before it starts to dry out. With veneering glue the open time (depending on brand) is normally around 15 - 20 minutes, unless you are working in a dry, hot environment, then it is substantially reduced. All this means is that when you are working with glues, you need work steady, with no lag times.
Once one side of the substrate is covered with glue and the matching veneer as well, they are simply bonded together and it is best now to roll the veneer to make sure no air bubbles are showing.
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Veneering in woodworking is not new, it has been around in one form or another for centuries. It has been practiced by woodworkers in many different parts of the world, often as smaller pieces, for inlays, accents and other features. Today, we have an amazing breadth of wood species to choose from, from almost any exotic hardwood you can imagine, to figure woods and burls that are spectacular. With all the varieties and figured wood veneers that are available now, anyone who wants to take the time to learn veneering can turn out wood projects that are truly works of art.
There are basically three kinds of veneering, the oldest form and the one we are going to spend the most time on here, is called cold veneering, where veneer strips are glued to a substrate or base. Also becoming quite popular are is veneering where a glue has been applied to the back of the veneer and it can be attached to the substrate by simply by peeling off a plastic or waxy backing and then sticking the veneer on to the substrate. This is called Pressure Veneering and only requires a type of blade or edge to smooth the veneer out over the substrate and is ideal for smaller projects. The third kind of veneering is done by using a veneer with a heat activated glue pre-applied to the back of the veneer, and is called Heat Activated Veneering. In this case the veneer is laid on the substrate material and something a simple as a household iron is used to attach the veneer to the substrate.
All of these methods of veneering work well, not all of them in the same situations, and that is why there are different kinds ... because some work better in one instance while another works better somewhere else. Any of the pre-applied glue veneers are more costly than raw veneers and the choices of veneers is far less with the pre-applied glue types. For larger veneering projects and where ongoing veneering is the norm, the cold veneering with raw veneers is easily the most effective and preferred method. Other types are normally more suited for smaller projects.