Budget pressing

M

Max3000

Jul 9, 2018
58
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4,531
#1
Say I were constructing a hollow body or semi-hollow body guitar on a fairly tight budget. If I wanted to put a laminate arched top onto a piece of wood that would make up the sides and back, would it be unreasonable to first carve a mold for the top out of a solid piece of wood, press the veneer on it (using sandbags above it), and then gutting the solid piece of wood and repurposing it as the side/back piece? This is my first time doing something like this and I wanna know exactly how cheap I can get away with being
 
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#2
That potentially could work along with a top caul on top of the sandbags clamped down, it was a traditional way of veneering for furniture makers in years gone by. A better approach would be a vacuum bag press if you can find someone near who has one, it will give a lot of extra pressure in those hard to get to bits.

Another thing worth thinking about is how tight any carved radii might be, especially compound radii. Veneers may not want to bend into that shape without creasing or splitting, if that is the case you can spend a couple of days trying to train the veneer to fit. How, easy, just wet the veneer, clamp it down and let it dry, protecting your caved top in a plastic bag of course. Do that a few times until the shape is there then glue it down. For very tight curves you can further soften the veneer with PEG, polyethylene glycol, used by woodturners who use wet timber.

I would use a powder/water mix urea formaldehyde glue like Cascamite if you can get it for the glueing too as it will give you much more time to work than a super fast drying glue like Titebond
 
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#3
@Christine 's got some good ideas. What kind of budgetary limits are we talking about? Are you hoping to avoid expensive woods, or are you hoping to build the entire thing without most tools/supplies?

To clarify on your first question, you want to use the wood from your form to later construct the sides of the instrument?
 
#4
Beej said:
@Christine 's got some good ideas. What kind of budgetary limits are we talking about? Are you hoping to avoid expensive woods, or are you hoping to build the entire thing without most tools/supplies?

To clarify on your first question, you want to use the wood from your form to later construct the sides of the instrument?
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Without most tools yeah. And yes I want to use the form later as my sides and back (like the CS-336 and the reverse of most rickenbacker semi-hollows in that it’s one carved piece).
 
#5
Christine said:
That potentially could work along with a top caul on top of the sandbags clamped down, it was a traditional way of veneering for furniture makers in years gone by. A better approach would be a vacuum bag press if you can find someone near who has one, it will give a lot of extra pressure in those hard to get to bits.

Another thing worth thinking about is how tight any carved radii might be, especially compound radii. Veneers may not want to bend into that shape without creasing or splitting, if that is the case you can spend a couple of days trying to train the veneer to fit. How, easy, just wet the veneer, clamp it down and let it dry, protecting your caved top in a plastic bag of course. Do that a few times until the shape is there then glue it down. For very tight curves you can further soften the veneer with PEG, polyethylene glycol, used by woodturners who use wet timber.

I would use a powder/water mix urea formaldehyde glue like Cascamite if you can get it for the glueing too as it will give you much more time to work than a super fast drying glue like Titebond
Click to expand...
Would wetting the veneer also wet the form?
 
#12
Training isn't strictly necessary with something like an ES it should be quite a straightforward pressing but it will help a little and the practice it will give you will help a lot. Oh and remember to keep a plastic bag over the mold when gluing the shape otherwise you'll never get it off
 
#13
Christine said:
Training isn't strictly necessary with something like an ES it should be quite a straightforward pressing but it will help a little and the practice it will give you will help a lot. Oh and remember to keep a plastic bag over the mold when gluing the shape otherwise you'll never get it off
Click to expand...
Wait then how is training different from pressing? Sorry I’m not understanding
 
#14
Training is just that, pre pressing the veneer wet and leaving it to dry so it learns to assume the shape you want without creasing or splitting, pressing for real is using glue instead of water so if things go wrong then they stay wrong
 
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