04-13-2018, 04:24 PM
I've been reading many of these refinishing and re-veneering threads and so far was successful at restraining my fingers, but now I've got a few minutes to kill and thought I'd throw a few things out there.
First, I should mention that I've been professionally refinishing and restoring furniture for 35 years now.
Until the 1960's the single most commonly used glue for veneering and cabinet construction was hide glue. This matters because one of the things about hide glue is it can be heated to get it to release and rebond. That's why luthiers still use the stuff, they use heated knives and such to take apart instruments for repair work.
The typical mistake I encounter in home reglue/repair jobs is failing to remove and clean up the old glue. New glue will not make old glue stick. Yes, sometimes you can get lucky and have glue kind of stick, but in any good glue joint, the wood will fail before before the joint.
Contact cement is not a good choice for veneer work. In fact, in all the years of working with it, (I used to use it exclusively for everything from veneer to laminate countertops) I've yet to find an ideal application for it other than killing brain cells.
Contact cement never actually dries, and as we know wood expands and contracts, sooner or later this problem results in veneer "creep". Another problem is heat, contact cement will release at around 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Set a contact cement veneered piece in direct sunlight in the summertime and watch the bubbles come to life.
Another issue with contact cement is oil based wood stains with a high solvent content (*cough cough* minwax *cough cough*) will also attack and cause the contact cement to release.
If you're going to use contact cement anyway, make sure you're using cross-banded or paper backed veneer.
I've used many suppliers over the years and had luck with most, but for the last ten or so years joewoodworker.com has been heads above the rest. In fact their website is chock full of valuable information, much more than I will type here today, so go see them for information and I'll get off my soapbox...
....until I've the time to type about stripping.
First, I should mention that I've been professionally refinishing and restoring furniture for 35 years now.
Until the 1960's the single most commonly used glue for veneering and cabinet construction was hide glue. This matters because one of the things about hide glue is it can be heated to get it to release and rebond. That's why luthiers still use the stuff, they use heated knives and such to take apart instruments for repair work.
The typical mistake I encounter in home reglue/repair jobs is failing to remove and clean up the old glue. New glue will not make old glue stick. Yes, sometimes you can get lucky and have glue kind of stick, but in any good glue joint, the wood will fail before before the joint.
Contact cement is not a good choice for veneer work. In fact, in all the years of working with it, (I used to use it exclusively for everything from veneer to laminate countertops) I've yet to find an ideal application for it other than killing brain cells.
Contact cement never actually dries, and as we know wood expands and contracts, sooner or later this problem results in veneer "creep". Another problem is heat, contact cement will release at around 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Set a contact cement veneered piece in direct sunlight in the summertime and watch the bubbles come to life.
Another issue with contact cement is oil based wood stains with a high solvent content (*cough cough* minwax *cough cough*) will also attack and cause the contact cement to release.
If you're going to use contact cement anyway, make sure you're using cross-banded or paper backed veneer.
I've used many suppliers over the years and had luck with most, but for the last ten or so years joewoodworker.com has been heads above the rest. In fact their website is chock full of valuable information, much more than I will type here today, so go see them for information and I'll get off my soapbox...
....until I've the time to type about stripping.
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