15-04-2011, 10:56 AM
Hi,
This story began about four months ago when Steve P very kindly transported the set from WB to his home and I collected it from there.
The cabinet restoration is the subject of a huge thread on VRF under the title “Restorers dream” and as it spanned four months I’ll add a shortened version here. I was honoured to be allowed to display the restored cabinet at the recent Golborne meeting.
Although I’ve made steady progress I always considered myself a novice at cabinetwork; I’ve endeavoured to make each set better than the previous one building on my experience; I have no formal training in woodwork other than almost 50 years ago being taught it at school and at the time I hated the subject and disliked the bully of the teacher with a passion who spent more time bending lads over a bench to give them a good thrashing with one of his conveyor belt straps; he had a choice of three of these. I failed woodwork.
Over the last few years I’ve enjoyed learning various techniques by trial and error these include; scraping; veneering; staining and French polishing. My last cabinet restoration was a Philco 84B kindly bought for me by Bronwyn as a Christmas present shipping it to the UK from Oklahoma in the states; this was the roughest radio on eBay at the time and a total basket case; it was a struggle but eventually bit by bit I fully restored this Philco and learned a great deal whilst carrying out the work.
Whilst reading through the BVWS Bulletin I noticed a very sad looking GEC TV and thought this would make a wonderful restoration project as it looked very rough so I enquired about it but the owner was going to restore it; however; resulting from my enquiry I was offered a choice of TV’s and thanking everyone I chose this 1957 Ekco T311 as it was by far the roughest set imaginable and even a skip would have rejected it. I had been kindly sent pictures of the set but when I got it home and stood looking at it sitting on the bench I thought what have I done? The cabinet was riddled with woodworm and badly de-laminating; the safety screen was missing as was the securing metal strip; removing the back cover I was amazed as many of the components on the chassis were buried with dirt and debris; the LOPT enclosure had totally disintegrated in short it was just up my street and presented me with the ultimate challenge.
[attachment=671]
The ultimate challenge.
I spent quite a while thinking how best to proceed with this set; would it be better to completely replace the cabinet by making a brand new one because surely this one could never be restored and I would be stupid to attempt trying to restore it. So being stupid I decided to attempt restoration but did not jump straight in; I waited a few days giving me time to think about how to go about it and to form a plan.
The original finish appeared to be thick brown treacle over common plywood; this cabinet was just like a piece of utility furniture and right from the start I already had a vision in my head as to how I would like to see this cabinet restored to; in fact I wasn’t going to restore it; I had ambitious plans to customize the cabinet to my own liking incorporating all the techniques and skills so far picked up. I could see this cabinet with inlay panels; cross banding and stringing finished with French polish. The only small problem between what I was looking at and what I wanted to look at was my own ability to do the work and already I had stuck my neck out by declaring to the world that I was going to attempt this restoration in real time allowing everyone to see my progress or lack of it; I was now committed.
I surfed eBay for Burr Walnut veneers and found plenty but all were too expensive with the lowest price of £38 giving only just enough veneer to complete the inlay panels and non spare in case I made a mistake. I spent hours trying to obtain veneer but then I noticed a site offering two long lengths of Sapele Pommele veneer which looked interesting and at £22 it appeared to be a bargain so I bought two pieces. This took care of the inlay panels and I already had plenty of Quartered Sapele in stock for the cross banding. I also bought 2KG of hide glue and made a proper veneering hammer.
[attachment=673]
Home made veneering hammers.
All during this project the weather was dire with the worst winter ever recorded; it was very dark with lots of snow and ice; my north facing workshop was like a five star fridge rendering it out of bounds; my garage was extremely cold but better than the workshop as it contained the central heating boiler and as the temperature in the garage remained below freezing the boiler was constantly fired up due to it being frost protected but it afforded little heat into my 22’ x 11’ garage so many days I could only work for around an hour or so before becoming too cold to safely operate my machines. All during this restoration I was constantly carrying the cabinet between garage; kitchen and hall. Each trip to and from the garage was hazardous due to ice and I had to keep covering the cabinet to prevent snow and ice from our trees dropping upon it; I was frozen most of the time and became frustrated whilst working in the kitchen as I would need tools from the garage or workshop and if the cabinet was in the garage the tool required would be in the kitchen.
To add to the problems I didn’t even know if I could pull this restoration off. I spent days surfing the Internet for ideas and information as I had never seen a cabinet in such poor condition restored before but I ended up totally on my own so I had to come up with a plan. The de-lamination was severe and the outer ply could easily be peeled away so re-gluing wasn’t an option; the woodworm damage was also severe; it looked a hopeless case. I spent many hours wide awake in bed at night thinking about the various problems until eventually I thought would it be possible to completely replace the cabinet sides? This was extremely ambitious but the more I thought about it the more I became convinced it made sense; at a stroke I could get rid of both the de-lamination and worm problems so decided to go for it; after all I had nothing to lose so may as well go out fighting.
I drove around timber suppliers in Huddersfield in the freezing conditions and bought three lots of 6mm plywood; this plywood would form the core for each side panel but each time I got the plywood home in the heated car it was buckled and I was totally disgusted by its quality. The plywood not only warped but contained either voids or overlapping plies in its construction; for my use it was totally unacceptable and all the suppliers I tried were selling this rubbish. Having absolutely no success at obtaining decent quality plywood I started to look at the alternatives and eventually visited a timber yard in Halifax to buy an 8’x4’x6mm sheet of moisture resistant MDF. The sheet only cost around £11 but I had to cut it into four equal sizes for it to fit into the car doing this using a handsaw kindly loaned to me.
[attachment=672]
Modern rubbish plywood.
At last I now could make a start on the restoration. The chassis and CRT etc were removed leaving a bare cabinet and these parts after blowing off with a compressor airline were placed safely in our spare bedroom. A piece of MDF was placed upon the bench and the cabinet placed on top with one side down. Using a sharp pencil the profile was drawn; the back and bottom was drawn exactly to size and would act as datum points but the top and front edges had an extra ¼” added for later trimming. This was repeated for the second panel and each new panel was clearly marked. One side panel had a large hole to house the adjusting knobs so this hole was accurately drawn around.
Both pieces of MDF were then cut out on the large bandsaw. Now where could I do the veneering; it was too cold in both garage and workshop so I opted for the kitchen. As stated my plan was to add inlaid panels with cross banding; the panels now gave me a major problem because they contained both straight and curved edges; the straight edges were easy but the curved edges really threw me. I wanted equal width cross banding all around the panel but how do I accomplish this around the curves? After a lot of thought I decided to make a template from picture mounting thick card and this resolved the problem; all I needed to do now was add the veneers!!
The Pommele veneer didn’t have perfectly straight edges so a “butt joint” was out of the question and I couldn’t stand the cold in the garage to true the edges up so opted for the well practised method of overlap and cut using a wooden straightedge and craft knife. Two widths of Pommele would be needed for each inlaid panel. Very careful measurements were taken allowing extra for trimming and extra for joint cutting then two pieces of Pommele were cut in the kitchen using a piece of thick chipboard to protect the work surface. A sharp craft knife was run against the wooden straightedge taking three or four passes to cut right through the veneer; this ensures the knife follows the straightedge and not the grain of the veneer. I only cut two pieces of Pommele at this stage just in case I made a mess of veneering.
[attachment=674]
Pommele veneer badly curled up.
A new batch of hide glue was made up and heated on the kitchen hob; the work surfaces and draining board were protected; the electric iron was switched on and set to hot; a container was partly filled with warm clean water and a piece of clean tea towel dropped in. The piece of chipboard was placed on the work surface and a panel of MDF placed onto this so everything was ready and I felt in a state of panic.
Rather than jumping straight in with the expensive Pommele veneer I thought it wise to practise by adding the backing veneer first; this backing veneer is most important and is added to the opposite side of the panel; when hide glue is used it exerts tremendous pressure or tension on a panel and as it dries out the panel will cup badly so both sides of a panel require veneering as this balances out the tensions. I was to use quartered Sapele as backing veneer and the widths I had meant three pieces would be needed for each panel; fortunately the edges were perfectly straight so could be “butt jointed”. Three lengths of this quartered veneer were cut allowing a little extra for later trimming.
By now I had been surfing the web and found an absolutely brilliant video on “you tube” showing how to lay basic veneer. I have done a bit of veneering previously but it was a real pain and I quickly found out wetting one side of veneer with hide glue will cause the veneer to curl up and walk out of the workshop; this is the hardest part of veneering without a doubt for a novice and possibly what causes a novice to pack the lot in. I can tell you the trick is to ensure both sides of the veneer are wetted. The video clearly shows how veneer is soaked with water then ironed absolutely flat using the hot electric iron; this removes all fight from the veneer and renders the veneer more pliable.
[attachment=675]
Pommele veneer after ironing.
I soaked the three lengths of veneer placing them on the bare work surface and went over them a couple of times with the hot iron producing a hissing/cracking noise together with steam ensuring the veneer was not allowed to become dry. The panel was wetted and a generous coat of hot hide glue was brushed on covering the area where a length of veneer was to be laid; this was done in a casual manner and whereas previously I panicked trying to add the glue and lay the veneer before the glue started to set this time I was more relaxed and didn’t worry in the least as the glue started to set. Ensuring the area was completely covered with glue excess water was removed from a piece of quartered Sapele whilst still leaving it wet and this was placed accurately into position; the electric iron now on a lower heat setting hot enough to melt the glue was quickly applied to the entire piece of veneer; this immediately softened the glue; putting the iron safely out of the way the veneering hammer was used to press the veneer into close contact with the MDF panel removing excess glue; one hand held the veneer in position whilst the other hand used the hammer; the method is shown in the video below.
During laying the veneer I didn’t worry about getting hide glue on the veneer face and now with the first length of veneer laid I quickly wiped over its surface with a damp cloth taking care to remove all traces of hide glue then followed with a dry cloth to remove excess moisture. The remaining two lengths of veneer were laid taking care to abut the joints tightly and having removed excess glue wiped the panel dry this completed the backing veneer which really did cheer me up as it went so well without any fight whatsoever from the veneer; once the glue set up the edges could be trimmed.
A veneering hammer is not actually a hammer in the common sense because it is not used by striking anything; it is used like a squeegee to apply pressure onto the veneer forcing the veneer into close contact with the panel and removing excess glue. A veneering hammer can be bought but I made my own as shown in the picture. I actually made four hammers
Now for the tricky part of laying up the fancy veneers; many websites advice this cannot be done using hide glue but I know it can be done and here’s how. I applied both pieces of Pommele veneer exactly as before ensuring it was accurately laid but this time I had the joint to consider. The first piece was laid overlapping the joint line drawn in using a pencil by approximately ½”, the second piece was laid also overlapping the centre mark; the wooden straightedge was carefully aligned on centre and the craft knife run down the joint a number of times taking extreme care not to slip and cut myself or let the blade wander off track; both thicknesses of veneer were cut right through then the straightedge and knife were placed safely away; the top waste strip of veneer easily peeled away; the lower waste strip of veneer was also peeled away after first lifting the upper veneer which was trapping it; lifting the veneer was done with care and the lower waste strip was removed; I was rather worried about the joint being glue starved so ran the glue brush under the veneer making what looked a mess but this didn’t worry me; the veneer hammer was quickly run over pressing the joint fully home and removed most of the excess glue; the remainder being removed with a damp cloth then whilst the veneer was still wet the card template was placed into position and the craft knife run around again taking a great deal of care not to let the template move and not cutting myself; the template was removed and the waste veneer was peeled away; the Pommele veneer was cleaned off with a damp cloth and wiped dry. I couldn’t believe how I had reached this stage without having to fight the veneer or encounter any other problems. Where the waste veneer had started set the hot iron was used allowing its removal.
[attachment=676]
Card template.
Now I wanted to add the quartered Sapele cross banding and at first this appeared rather daunting mainly due to the rounded sections; the cross banding needed to be a decent fit abutting the inlaid panel as a narrow groove would be cut later at the joint to accept the stringing. I decided to cut the pieces of veneer for the straight sections first to give me a bit of time to think the rounded corner problem through; it was easy to cut parallel strips of veneer but I did quickly discover that trying to cut the veneer in full strokes broke away the veneer edge as the knife left it so the answer was to cut inwards from each edge preventing such breakout. I cut plenty of strips and by the time this was done I had come up with the idea of using tracing paper for the rounded corners. I traced the profile after first drawing in the line where the mitred joint would be; the profile was added to veneer allowing a little extra for joint cutting and once again this was another problem solved as the method worked well. I marked each of the corner veneers cutting them freehand using the craft knife and painstakingly laid the cross banding using the overlap method of cutting joints. As before excess glue was removed and the veneer wiped over with a dry cloth.
[attachment=678]
Laying quartered Sapele balance veneer.
I was truly amazed standing looking at the panel and felt a deep sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that at last I had grasped not only how to lay basic veneer but how to lay fancy veneer designs successfully. I was still in trouble though because I knew the front rounded section of the top panel was just waiting to trip me up so at this stage I didn’t feel over confident at all. It started to occur to me that I might even pull this restoration off after all but I had a long way yet to go.
[attachment=679]
What a relief to reach this stage.
As this was a major restoration I would like if permitted to break it down into a number of sections in order to add pictures showing each stage; explaining using text alone is very difficult but with the aid of pictures hopefully things become clearer.
This video is the best I’ve ever seen covering basic veneer laying and well worth watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awIBy11kMA8&feature=related
Kind regards, Col.
This story began about four months ago when Steve P very kindly transported the set from WB to his home and I collected it from there.
The cabinet restoration is the subject of a huge thread on VRF under the title “Restorers dream” and as it spanned four months I’ll add a shortened version here. I was honoured to be allowed to display the restored cabinet at the recent Golborne meeting.
Although I’ve made steady progress I always considered myself a novice at cabinetwork; I’ve endeavoured to make each set better than the previous one building on my experience; I have no formal training in woodwork other than almost 50 years ago being taught it at school and at the time I hated the subject and disliked the bully of the teacher with a passion who spent more time bending lads over a bench to give them a good thrashing with one of his conveyor belt straps; he had a choice of three of these. I failed woodwork.
Over the last few years I’ve enjoyed learning various techniques by trial and error these include; scraping; veneering; staining and French polishing. My last cabinet restoration was a Philco 84B kindly bought for me by Bronwyn as a Christmas present shipping it to the UK from Oklahoma in the states; this was the roughest radio on eBay at the time and a total basket case; it was a struggle but eventually bit by bit I fully restored this Philco and learned a great deal whilst carrying out the work.
Whilst reading through the BVWS Bulletin I noticed a very sad looking GEC TV and thought this would make a wonderful restoration project as it looked very rough so I enquired about it but the owner was going to restore it; however; resulting from my enquiry I was offered a choice of TV’s and thanking everyone I chose this 1957 Ekco T311 as it was by far the roughest set imaginable and even a skip would have rejected it. I had been kindly sent pictures of the set but when I got it home and stood looking at it sitting on the bench I thought what have I done? The cabinet was riddled with woodworm and badly de-laminating; the safety screen was missing as was the securing metal strip; removing the back cover I was amazed as many of the components on the chassis were buried with dirt and debris; the LOPT enclosure had totally disintegrated in short it was just up my street and presented me with the ultimate challenge.
[attachment=671]
The ultimate challenge.
I spent quite a while thinking how best to proceed with this set; would it be better to completely replace the cabinet by making a brand new one because surely this one could never be restored and I would be stupid to attempt trying to restore it. So being stupid I decided to attempt restoration but did not jump straight in; I waited a few days giving me time to think about how to go about it and to form a plan.
The original finish appeared to be thick brown treacle over common plywood; this cabinet was just like a piece of utility furniture and right from the start I already had a vision in my head as to how I would like to see this cabinet restored to; in fact I wasn’t going to restore it; I had ambitious plans to customize the cabinet to my own liking incorporating all the techniques and skills so far picked up. I could see this cabinet with inlay panels; cross banding and stringing finished with French polish. The only small problem between what I was looking at and what I wanted to look at was my own ability to do the work and already I had stuck my neck out by declaring to the world that I was going to attempt this restoration in real time allowing everyone to see my progress or lack of it; I was now committed.
I surfed eBay for Burr Walnut veneers and found plenty but all were too expensive with the lowest price of £38 giving only just enough veneer to complete the inlay panels and non spare in case I made a mistake. I spent hours trying to obtain veneer but then I noticed a site offering two long lengths of Sapele Pommele veneer which looked interesting and at £22 it appeared to be a bargain so I bought two pieces. This took care of the inlay panels and I already had plenty of Quartered Sapele in stock for the cross banding. I also bought 2KG of hide glue and made a proper veneering hammer.
[attachment=673]
Home made veneering hammers.
All during this project the weather was dire with the worst winter ever recorded; it was very dark with lots of snow and ice; my north facing workshop was like a five star fridge rendering it out of bounds; my garage was extremely cold but better than the workshop as it contained the central heating boiler and as the temperature in the garage remained below freezing the boiler was constantly fired up due to it being frost protected but it afforded little heat into my 22’ x 11’ garage so many days I could only work for around an hour or so before becoming too cold to safely operate my machines. All during this restoration I was constantly carrying the cabinet between garage; kitchen and hall. Each trip to and from the garage was hazardous due to ice and I had to keep covering the cabinet to prevent snow and ice from our trees dropping upon it; I was frozen most of the time and became frustrated whilst working in the kitchen as I would need tools from the garage or workshop and if the cabinet was in the garage the tool required would be in the kitchen.
To add to the problems I didn’t even know if I could pull this restoration off. I spent days surfing the Internet for ideas and information as I had never seen a cabinet in such poor condition restored before but I ended up totally on my own so I had to come up with a plan. The de-lamination was severe and the outer ply could easily be peeled away so re-gluing wasn’t an option; the woodworm damage was also severe; it looked a hopeless case. I spent many hours wide awake in bed at night thinking about the various problems until eventually I thought would it be possible to completely replace the cabinet sides? This was extremely ambitious but the more I thought about it the more I became convinced it made sense; at a stroke I could get rid of both the de-lamination and worm problems so decided to go for it; after all I had nothing to lose so may as well go out fighting.
I drove around timber suppliers in Huddersfield in the freezing conditions and bought three lots of 6mm plywood; this plywood would form the core for each side panel but each time I got the plywood home in the heated car it was buckled and I was totally disgusted by its quality. The plywood not only warped but contained either voids or overlapping plies in its construction; for my use it was totally unacceptable and all the suppliers I tried were selling this rubbish. Having absolutely no success at obtaining decent quality plywood I started to look at the alternatives and eventually visited a timber yard in Halifax to buy an 8’x4’x6mm sheet of moisture resistant MDF. The sheet only cost around £11 but I had to cut it into four equal sizes for it to fit into the car doing this using a handsaw kindly loaned to me.
[attachment=672]
Modern rubbish plywood.
At last I now could make a start on the restoration. The chassis and CRT etc were removed leaving a bare cabinet and these parts after blowing off with a compressor airline were placed safely in our spare bedroom. A piece of MDF was placed upon the bench and the cabinet placed on top with one side down. Using a sharp pencil the profile was drawn; the back and bottom was drawn exactly to size and would act as datum points but the top and front edges had an extra ¼” added for later trimming. This was repeated for the second panel and each new panel was clearly marked. One side panel had a large hole to house the adjusting knobs so this hole was accurately drawn around.
Both pieces of MDF were then cut out on the large bandsaw. Now where could I do the veneering; it was too cold in both garage and workshop so I opted for the kitchen. As stated my plan was to add inlaid panels with cross banding; the panels now gave me a major problem because they contained both straight and curved edges; the straight edges were easy but the curved edges really threw me. I wanted equal width cross banding all around the panel but how do I accomplish this around the curves? After a lot of thought I decided to make a template from picture mounting thick card and this resolved the problem; all I needed to do now was add the veneers!!
The Pommele veneer didn’t have perfectly straight edges so a “butt joint” was out of the question and I couldn’t stand the cold in the garage to true the edges up so opted for the well practised method of overlap and cut using a wooden straightedge and craft knife. Two widths of Pommele would be needed for each inlaid panel. Very careful measurements were taken allowing extra for trimming and extra for joint cutting then two pieces of Pommele were cut in the kitchen using a piece of thick chipboard to protect the work surface. A sharp craft knife was run against the wooden straightedge taking three or four passes to cut right through the veneer; this ensures the knife follows the straightedge and not the grain of the veneer. I only cut two pieces of Pommele at this stage just in case I made a mess of veneering.
[attachment=674]
Pommele veneer badly curled up.
A new batch of hide glue was made up and heated on the kitchen hob; the work surfaces and draining board were protected; the electric iron was switched on and set to hot; a container was partly filled with warm clean water and a piece of clean tea towel dropped in. The piece of chipboard was placed on the work surface and a panel of MDF placed onto this so everything was ready and I felt in a state of panic.
Rather than jumping straight in with the expensive Pommele veneer I thought it wise to practise by adding the backing veneer first; this backing veneer is most important and is added to the opposite side of the panel; when hide glue is used it exerts tremendous pressure or tension on a panel and as it dries out the panel will cup badly so both sides of a panel require veneering as this balances out the tensions. I was to use quartered Sapele as backing veneer and the widths I had meant three pieces would be needed for each panel; fortunately the edges were perfectly straight so could be “butt jointed”. Three lengths of this quartered veneer were cut allowing a little extra for later trimming.
By now I had been surfing the web and found an absolutely brilliant video on “you tube” showing how to lay basic veneer. I have done a bit of veneering previously but it was a real pain and I quickly found out wetting one side of veneer with hide glue will cause the veneer to curl up and walk out of the workshop; this is the hardest part of veneering without a doubt for a novice and possibly what causes a novice to pack the lot in. I can tell you the trick is to ensure both sides of the veneer are wetted. The video clearly shows how veneer is soaked with water then ironed absolutely flat using the hot electric iron; this removes all fight from the veneer and renders the veneer more pliable.
[attachment=675]
Pommele veneer after ironing.
I soaked the three lengths of veneer placing them on the bare work surface and went over them a couple of times with the hot iron producing a hissing/cracking noise together with steam ensuring the veneer was not allowed to become dry. The panel was wetted and a generous coat of hot hide glue was brushed on covering the area where a length of veneer was to be laid; this was done in a casual manner and whereas previously I panicked trying to add the glue and lay the veneer before the glue started to set this time I was more relaxed and didn’t worry in the least as the glue started to set. Ensuring the area was completely covered with glue excess water was removed from a piece of quartered Sapele whilst still leaving it wet and this was placed accurately into position; the electric iron now on a lower heat setting hot enough to melt the glue was quickly applied to the entire piece of veneer; this immediately softened the glue; putting the iron safely out of the way the veneering hammer was used to press the veneer into close contact with the MDF panel removing excess glue; one hand held the veneer in position whilst the other hand used the hammer; the method is shown in the video below.
During laying the veneer I didn’t worry about getting hide glue on the veneer face and now with the first length of veneer laid I quickly wiped over its surface with a damp cloth taking care to remove all traces of hide glue then followed with a dry cloth to remove excess moisture. The remaining two lengths of veneer were laid taking care to abut the joints tightly and having removed excess glue wiped the panel dry this completed the backing veneer which really did cheer me up as it went so well without any fight whatsoever from the veneer; once the glue set up the edges could be trimmed.
A veneering hammer is not actually a hammer in the common sense because it is not used by striking anything; it is used like a squeegee to apply pressure onto the veneer forcing the veneer into close contact with the panel and removing excess glue. A veneering hammer can be bought but I made my own as shown in the picture. I actually made four hammers
Now for the tricky part of laying up the fancy veneers; many websites advice this cannot be done using hide glue but I know it can be done and here’s how. I applied both pieces of Pommele veneer exactly as before ensuring it was accurately laid but this time I had the joint to consider. The first piece was laid overlapping the joint line drawn in using a pencil by approximately ½”, the second piece was laid also overlapping the centre mark; the wooden straightedge was carefully aligned on centre and the craft knife run down the joint a number of times taking extreme care not to slip and cut myself or let the blade wander off track; both thicknesses of veneer were cut right through then the straightedge and knife were placed safely away; the top waste strip of veneer easily peeled away; the lower waste strip of veneer was also peeled away after first lifting the upper veneer which was trapping it; lifting the veneer was done with care and the lower waste strip was removed; I was rather worried about the joint being glue starved so ran the glue brush under the veneer making what looked a mess but this didn’t worry me; the veneer hammer was quickly run over pressing the joint fully home and removed most of the excess glue; the remainder being removed with a damp cloth then whilst the veneer was still wet the card template was placed into position and the craft knife run around again taking a great deal of care not to let the template move and not cutting myself; the template was removed and the waste veneer was peeled away; the Pommele veneer was cleaned off with a damp cloth and wiped dry. I couldn’t believe how I had reached this stage without having to fight the veneer or encounter any other problems. Where the waste veneer had started set the hot iron was used allowing its removal.
[attachment=676]
Card template.
Now I wanted to add the quartered Sapele cross banding and at first this appeared rather daunting mainly due to the rounded sections; the cross banding needed to be a decent fit abutting the inlaid panel as a narrow groove would be cut later at the joint to accept the stringing. I decided to cut the pieces of veneer for the straight sections first to give me a bit of time to think the rounded corner problem through; it was easy to cut parallel strips of veneer but I did quickly discover that trying to cut the veneer in full strokes broke away the veneer edge as the knife left it so the answer was to cut inwards from each edge preventing such breakout. I cut plenty of strips and by the time this was done I had come up with the idea of using tracing paper for the rounded corners. I traced the profile after first drawing in the line where the mitred joint would be; the profile was added to veneer allowing a little extra for joint cutting and once again this was another problem solved as the method worked well. I marked each of the corner veneers cutting them freehand using the craft knife and painstakingly laid the cross banding using the overlap method of cutting joints. As before excess glue was removed and the veneer wiped over with a dry cloth.
[attachment=678]
Laying quartered Sapele balance veneer.
I was truly amazed standing looking at the panel and felt a deep sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that at last I had grasped not only how to lay basic veneer but how to lay fancy veneer designs successfully. I was still in trouble though because I knew the front rounded section of the top panel was just waiting to trip me up so at this stage I didn’t feel over confident at all. It started to occur to me that I might even pull this restoration off after all but I had a long way yet to go.
[attachment=679]
What a relief to reach this stage.
As this was a major restoration I would like if permitted to break it down into a number of sections in order to add pictures showing each stage; explaining using text alone is very difficult but with the aid of pictures hopefully things become clearer.
This video is the best I’ve ever seen covering basic veneer laying and well worth watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awIBy11kMA8&feature=related
Kind regards, Col.
