manual123 Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 Ok heres the deal, i got a les paul body off of ebay, hooked it up with a neck and a set of pups and all the other hardware. it sounds great but the finsh is finished and i want a quilt top or flame top so it could look at least half as good as it sounds. My question is how hard (or is it even possable) to glue a maple veneer top to my body even though its carved? i have never worked with veneer before but has worked with other forms of wood. WILL IT BE POSSIBLE??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 http://www.joewoodworker.com/veneering/welcome.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhoads56 Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 http://www.joewoodworker.com/veneering/welcome.htm thanks for the link, it is useless and doesnt answer the question. It is almost impossible, for proffessional outfits to veneer over compound surfaces, and ABSOLUTELY impossible for amatuers to do it. Veneer does not stretch, it tears. It doesnt compress, it crumbles. Forget about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 what are you talking about? the art school i attend has a furniture department and i know alot of guys in it, ive SEEN them use veneer and a vacuum table to put venner over PLYWOOD and it looks kick ass and stays that way for a long time. ive even seen them stretch veneer over complex shapes, complex being 30* angles within a few inches. so........chillout i was giving him a alternative to the 30,000$ setup they use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhoads56 Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 what are you talking about? the art school i attend has a furniture department and i know alot of guys in it, ive SEEN them use veneer and a vacuum table to put venner over PLYWOOD and it looks kick ass and stays that way for a long time. ive even seen them stretch veneer over complex shapes, complex being 30* angles within a few inches. so........chillout i was giving him a alternative to the 30,000$ setup they use. Yep, 30deg angles "for a few inches" is very common place. In fact, you'll even find samples in EVERY kitchen manufacturer you care to walk into. However, a 30deg angle AINT a compound carved top. Find me a compound carved surface thats been veneered. I can only give you my advice, as someone who is an advisor to the cabinet making industry, and having held positions specialising in veneers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 where is there a 'compound curve' in a carve top LP? are you talking about wrapping venner around the whole thing in one pass? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhoads56 Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 compound = two curves, top to bottom, left to right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 i could have sworn they were stretching veneer over curves like this: ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhoads56 Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 maybe vinyl, but not veneer. Some vinyls are near impossible to identify from veneer, from three feet away. Vinyl stretches and conforms to the shapes, once you apply a bit of heat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asm Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 i think he said they were putting it in a oven type machine that added moisture and heat, so when it came out it was like a sheet of wet paper, then put it over the material and vacuum it down. that would still crack it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhoads56 Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 yes steam makes it more pliable, but veneer is difficult to use. They MAY have been using something a little thicker, maybe 1/8" or 1/4" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulie Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 For my 50 cents (or about 30p) I tried to glue a 0.5mm thick flame maple veneer over a les paul and failed miserably even after steaming it for ages with a steam iron. The trouble I found is that you can only bend it one way at one time. This, I assume, is down to the fact that the veneer remains the same width at all times and cannot be squashed to go over rounded curves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strange Fruit Posted March 11, 2004 Report Share Posted March 11, 2004 ok, you guys have got me all confused now (not particually hard, i know) So, how do they bend the lamintaed tops on things like ES-335's et al? I know they use formers and steam it, but in this case, couldnt one use the body as the former? I would like to metion at this point that i have NO experience in this field at all, so if Im wrong, i accept that. And the veneer over a carved surface, for an example, how about the top on the SAGA HT-10 kit? Looks like a carved top with a veneer on it, so maybe it is possible after all. but i could still be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westhemann Posted March 12, 2004 Report Share Posted March 12, 2004 that doesn't look like a 2 direction carve...only one direction Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Litchfield Custom Gutars Posted March 12, 2004 Report Share Posted March 12, 2004 Schecter veneers the C1+ compound carve too. As for how...hell if I know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 Print out some flame on decal paper and apply. FOTO FLAME !! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
normandy123 Posted March 13, 2004 Report Share Posted March 13, 2004 Well while in college almost 40 years ago i had a class in botany...bear with me... in the class we were asked to section into microscopic thin sections about 15 microns thick, some tree stems (about 1 inch thick) well the knife would not cut thru because of the chemical content of the wood, so we soaked the pieces in pure ethylene glycol for about a week and you could just about tie them into a knot after that....then we ran the section thru the staining process (soaking them in various grade of alcohol 10%, 20%, 40 %, 60%, 80%, 99%, then the aniline dye. Well ethlene glycol is just a chemical that the alcohol likes to take back out of the wood. Maybe i should tell you ethylene gylcol is very lethal and i do not know if it is legal to buy...it was back then, because there were not so many nut cases running around threatening everybody...and nobody cared about future tax payers. I know auto antifreeze is mainly ethylene glycol but is dyed and has other crap in it so it is not useable for this. Maybe while the wood veneer would be flexible you could sand bag or vacuum it the like to the surface with appropriate glue. Then lay absorbent towels soaked with various grades of alcohol work up to 99% to get the glycol out until you have a paintable surface.... This would be something Tom Anderson could tell use since he does something to bend his thick maple tops on his 'drop top' models...but i doubt he is going to reveal anything to us! I dunno if this might work, I am not endorsing it, it is a bad chemical and will waste your dog or cat or child in a day if they drink it, let alone if you absorb it some into you skin ( i think it destroys your kidneys) back then the EPA did not exist...so let this be your caveate emptor! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhoads56 Posted March 14, 2004 Report Share Posted March 14, 2004 This would be something Tom Anderson could tell use since he does something to bend his thick maple tops on his 'drop top' models...but i doubt he is going to reveal anything to us! Tom Andersons doesnt have compound carves. Single direction bends are very simple... steam and bend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
normandy123 Posted March 25, 2004 Report Share Posted March 25, 2004 Here is a link to a place that sell veneer softening solution ....i think kinda the same as ethylene glycol but he says safer? anyhow going to give this suff a try...might take a week or two or three at the rate i am moving... try this: http://www.joewoodworker.com/catalog/produ...products_id=191 hope this helps also do a google serch for SF-20 which the internet guys are talking about too but i don't have a clue what that is... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manual123 Posted April 23, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 23, 2004 WEll thanks all for the reponses, as for the Les Paul top, it has curves that go left to right as well as front to back. and i dont really know if going in one pass is the way to go seeing how i never done it but i was planning on doing that. if i cant veneer the top, would makin my current maple top a transparent black be hard to do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.