# Walnut burl veneer?



## alittleoff (Nov 27, 2014)

I'm wanting to build a clock and use some veneer on the sides. I've never used any veneer before and was wondering what kind of glue to use and if I needed any special tools. The peices will be about 8ins. Wide and 12 to 14 ins. Long. I'll be gluing it to black walnut wood. Im doing that because the walnut I have to use just dosent have any wood grain features to it. Hope someone can help. Thanks in advance.
Gerald


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## John Smith_inFL (Dec 15, 2017)

did you make this veneer yourself or did you buy it from a supplier ?
how thick is it ?


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## shipwright (Sep 27, 2010)

Hide glue is all I would use for this (OK for almost anything) for several reasons. Personally I would use hot hide glue but liquid hide glue may be easier if you aren't familiar with the hot.
Reasons:
Reversibility if you don't get it right the first time
Ease of cleanup with water
No worries about glue blocking finish, especially important with burl
Crystal hard set, no creep or protruding / receding gluelines

... to name a few that come to mind.

You can use regular pva but I personally would not and I do lots of veneering.

.... just my opinion.


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## Dark_Lightning (Nov 20, 2009)

Buy your veneer in person, if at all possible. I just went through a return cycle with an online vendor whose employees don't know curly from quarter sawn grain figure. I had to send a picture from their own website to show them that what I had been sent wasn't quarter sawn to get a refund on the shipping, because they said that the "techs" filling the boxes were not allowed to select for "premium grain". I just wanted quarter sawn. Not that hard a request. Curly and quarter sawn are pretty obviously different, but some people in foreign countries don't seem to know or care. At least I got my money back, and didn't have to drive 50 miles one way to get the refund.


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## Lazyman (Aug 8, 2014)

+1 on the hot hide glue. On Paul's recommendation, I used it to hammer veneer my large modern mirror project and I'm very happy with how it turned out. The HHG is very forgiving and mistakes can be fixed which isn't true of most other adhesives. Mine was a semi-curly walnut, rather than a burl, but had some challenging angles and a curved surface. You'll want to practice on some cheaper veneer first. Checkout Paul's (shipwright's) blogs and videos for more info.


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## alittleoff (Nov 27, 2014)

Thanks for the answers guys. I haven't bought the veneer yet but was going to get it from WoodCraft. I bought some curly maple from them a couple times and one order was good and the next really wasn't that good. Hope the walnut turns out better. The veneer I'm looking at is 1/40" thick, I think that's about 25 or 30 thousandths, or close. I've got hide glue that's about 6 months old that might work to experiment with. I'll give it a try and see what happens. Thanks again.
Gerald


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## Lazyman (Aug 8, 2014)

Note that the methods of using liquid hide glue and hot hide glue for applying veneer are different. Hot hide glue is usually done by hammer veneering. With liquid hide glue you have to have a way to apply even pressure over the entire surface which may require some special setups for large pieces. I also used veneer from Woodcraft and they were fairly easy to apply with HHG, even for a first attempt. Regardless, the nice thing about the hide glues is that it is easy to clean up any glue residue with water and a scotch bright pad and if you are not happy with the results you can release it with heat and water to fix the problems.

Also note that the Veneer from Woodcraft is extremely thin. I literally cut it using a fabric cutting wheel and scissors. This means that you cannot do much sanding on it and it is prone to crack and split more easily. Paul recommended Certainly Wood when I asked him a while ago. If you look at his body of work on LJ, you will know that he knows what he is talking about (so I will stop speaking for him ;-).


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## knotheadswoodshed (Jun 14, 2012)

I get all my veneer here,
Joe is a great guy and very helpful.
https://www.veneersupplies.com/


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## shipwright (Sep 27, 2010)

As Nathan mentioned, the Woodcraft veneer (and almost all veneer that you can find today) is 1/42" and very thin. In the past, 1/28" was standard, then 1/32", and now 1/42" is most common although I fear 1/64" is on the horizon. It is already showing up.
That said Certainy Wood does sell a limited stock of 1/16" veneer and IMHO it is a much better choice. Probably no more expensive than the 1/42" from Woodcraft or veneersupplies.
Here's the link to their "special thickness veneer" page. https://www.certainlywood.com/woodmenu2.php?category=Special%20Thickness%20Veneers
To correct Nathan a little tiny bit, hot hide glue is the only glue that you can hammer veneer with but it is also a general good choice for all the same places you would use liquid hide glue. The only reason for using liquid hide glue really is open time.
Here is a link to my hide glue for beginners blog that Nathan referred to. http://lumberjocks.com/shipwright/blog/series/5437


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## Lazyman (Aug 8, 2014)

His blog entry with a video showing how hammer veneering works is sort of what convinced me that hammer veneering was the way to go, since a large cold or vacuum press was not feasible for me: 
http://lumberjocks.com/shipwright/blog/36014

Here is another video of someone using HHG to hammer a burl veneer:




There are others on YouTube as well.

The upfront costs are a veneer hammer and a way to heat and maintain the hide glue at the proper temperature. I think that Paul's blog has some some cheap alternatives for both. There was also a recent forum topic about different ideas for ways to heat the glue.

Ha! Can you tell that I love hammer veneering? I really need to do more of it. It is a very gratifying process and one of the funnest things I have learned to do.


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## shipwright (Sep 27, 2010)

I haven't seen that video before Nathan. He could have made it much easier for himself and used far, far less glue if he had flattened the burl with a spray of water and a few minutes in te press first. There are lots of "right" ways to do it. The result is really all that counts.


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