Yeah. As Nathan said, hammering with HHG is challenging on bigger pieces. My sweetie has asked multiple times about the tabletop I’ve promised her, and my current experiments are up to about 6 inches square, rather than the 5 foot diameter I’ll need for the tabletop (though any individual piece of veneer will be no more than 8 inches by 24 inches). But that technique should work for me with more practice, and I’ve got a sample pack of veneer from veneer supplies which I’ve been working with, and I’m trying larger pieces each time around. I’ll get there eventually, but the tabletop is getting some ash burl I got from CertainlyWood that is definitely beautiful, but also somewhat tricky to work with, as it’s burl.
Anyway, I definitely don’t know the answers, and while she would like to have the new tabletop sooner, we don’t have anyone visiting until next spring, so I’ve got at least that long to figure out my technique and clear enough space to set up the sawhorses and such in the shop. Plus it’ll be too cold outside for hot-hide-glue soon, so I can work on smaller practice pieces over the winter. Simply getting space to work on a 60” piece of wood (it’s a 5 foot square of ¾” cabinet-grade plywood, so I don’t want mistakes there, either) is a challenge most days.
To give you an idea of what I’ve tried and rejected so far, I tried TB2, which has a pretty good open time. But I had problems with it oozing through porosities in the veneer and gluing the veneer to my clamping cauls, even after treating them with wax and/or packing tape.
I tried with TB hide glue (which has a longish open time, especially if you thin it) and had problems with the veneer creeping as I clamped it. At least that I could remove by soaking the veneer with water and hitting it with a heat gun to soften things up, and I could reuse the piece of veneer.
The little practice box has taught me a TON so I strongly recommend working on smaller pieces first to figure out what works for you. I’m planning a 2’ circular table, or maybe a round box next, which I’ll veneer with four pieces of veneer, each a quarter-circle, which will get me experience butting the seams together that I’m going to need for the center of my table-top.
I encourage you to stick with the idea of veneer, Tom, because then you can learn stuff that might help me, too. ;-)
