New to veneer

A vacuum press with cold press glue are the best way to go. If you don’t want to invest the money in that then the peel & stick veneers work fairly well. If your just doing small stuff then it’s not too hard to build a small press using clamps and small flat boards.

-- Don - I wood work if I could. Redmond WA.

Draw fronts aren’t going to be to large. Have looked at different ways of clamping with long cauls. What is a cold press glue? Never heard of that.

Try heat activated glue (such as Titebond II). Spread the glue with a roller on both surfaces, let it dry, press with hot iron through a piece of paper. Work from the center out. Easy to correct mistakes – just iron it again. Work at your own pace. Lots of info on this on the web. This is by far the easiest, fastest, least messy, 0 investment approach. I tried it on burl veneer too. Perfect every time. I don’t understand why people even bother with clamping or vacuuming on flat surfaces.
They say never put glue on the veneer only on the substrate. I am yet to see why. When you put glue on veneer it rolls up and then straightens back when the glue dries. Titebond is thick and when spread with a roller (not with a spatula) will not flow through small pinholes often present in burls to the other side. Spatula may presses glue into the surface too hard. Wait for it to dry, slap it on the substrate prepared the same way and iron. The only word of caution: if veneer has cracks, they may expand due to intense heat (rapid drying) from the iron. You can mitigate this by decreasing temperature and cushioning.
Another easy approach is hammer veneering. The down side of this one is that hide glue is least water resistant of woodworking glues.
Good luck.

Cold press glue is basically just normal wood glue that’s thinner so it’s much easier to spread a thin even coat over large surfaces. You can make it yourself my thinning normal wood glue with water.

I’d recommend trying Viktor’s method, I’ve heard of it before but haven’t tried it myself. It sounds much cleaner and easier.

-- Don - I wood work if I could. Redmond WA.

Here is how I did it with cold press glue

-- - Eric Indianapolis, IN

Since you are new to veneering I heartedly recommend you check out Joe’s very educational site on the topic. I’d say it has about everything you want to know on the subject. And Joe is responsive to questions.

Thanks guys that gives me some direction to go. Bill Davis that is a great site on veneering, kind of like Phil Thien on Dust collection. There’s just a bundle of info there. Thanks I’ve got some reading to do.

I built a vacuum generator from Joe’s site and by reading and following his very helpful advice I built a toy box for my grandson. It is made with curly maple solids including frames and drawer fronts and all panels, six total, are veneered. My very first veneering project was 100 percent successful and satisfying.