A veneer project. Bolt on LP style.

[Eric Baack]

It's been a while since I posted much but I do have a couple of fun projects in the work. I have my first build torn down and am getting ready to vacuum bag a nice tight curly maple veneer on top of it. I never cared for how the finish on this one turned out and got the itch to do some work on it. I scored a free vacuum pump with motor, some tanks, fittings, hoses, made a bag from scrap material from the films division of where I work and have a decent little setup. I've been getting the seam just right and think I have it now.

No pictures of the veneering progress so far but here's a picture of the guitar that is being re-worked



Like I said, it was my first build... I used some green food coloring in the finish to get the color and of course that has faded some. I have proper dyes to use now and look forward to how it will look. I'm hoping to put some binding on it too. We will see how that goes!

[Art Davila]

Cool I have a few guitars I would love to veneer, but had no idea how to accomplish it on a carved top. I have veneered flat surfaces but getting the veneer to bend around the contours is something I have never done. Please post lots of pics of your process.

[Thomas Ruthardt]

.. I used some green food coloring ........!

But it Loks very gold, also faded.

[Eric Baack]

I didn't mention that the finish fish eyed on me REALLY badly and I didn't know about pore filling for the grain on the mahogany so it is a pitted mess

[Eric Baack]

Here are a few pictures of the setup.

Vacuum pump and tank:


Bag that I made from spare material that our Engineered Films department had


The guitar in the form that I made


And the top with the seam glued up. Just needs some supersoft 2 and to be glued up and the pressure applied

[Barry Daniels]

Why use Supersoft here.

[Eric Baack]

It has one spot around the horn that it was having trouble pulling down. I didn't have the breather mesh in though. Do you think it would work better once the mesh is in?

I was thinking the supersoft just to help it conform to the carve a bit better.

[David King]

I would cut out the horn and see if that helps.

[Eric Baack]

I cut away around it and it seems to be pressing nicely

Got 27 in of Hg if my gauge is right!






And a link to a quick video I made

https://youtu.be/JYuIWu7DGPg

[Eric Baack]

Cool I have a few guitars I would love to veneer, but had no idea how to accomplish it on a carved top. I have veneered flat surfaces but getting the veneer to bend around the contours is something I have never done. Please post lots of pics of your process.

do a search on youtube for "carved top veneer guitar" A guy is demonstrating the process I used (saw it there) with a piece of curly ebony on a carved spruce top.

[Art Davila]

Ok I will watch the video, but will that video tell me what super soft or breather Meath is?

[Eric Baack]

I didn't use the super soft. It is generally used to flatten out veneers that have warped and gotten brittle

The breather mesh is the mesh on top of the guitar inside of the bag. It keeps the bag from closing off a spot so it can't get vacuum there.

[Eric Baack]

I pulled it out of the form and there is a slight rise in the seam in one section, but it is short enough I can scrape that out and not burn through it. I'll have to be careful though. I don't know if I'll be able to black dye and sand it back. I also realized that the binding I bought is too short. It is 1/4" and I had left that thickness on the side of the body before.. not accounting for the added height of the veneer or the slight round over of the original edge. Guess I'll be ordering a taller piece!

Also need to glue it at the edge in a few spots. I think I must have wiped some glue away when wiping the sides off so that it wouldn't stick into the form.

The things we learn!

Otherwise it looks purdy

[Eric Baack]

I did some trimming on the edges but it needs a good bit of sanding yet too. I'm making a binding cutter attachment for my dremel to cut a nice ledge.

[Chris Richards]

Really interesting topic..Certainly something I'd like to try. I've always been doubtful about getting the centre join nice, could you describe the technique for gluing the veneer joint and what glue you use.

Thanks
Chris

[Eric Baack]

I didn't get the seam glued perfectly. It was just slightly off of flush but not enough so to cause a problem. I still had over half of the material in contact.

What I did was have the seam all set up and taped, then folded the veneer over with the tape in place to keep from getting much glue on the front face. Then I used a toothpick to apply glue. I used the cold press glue from veneersupplies.com for this along with the actual pressing of the veneer. I thought pre-gluing it might make it less likely for the seam to pull apart or buckle

Here's a link to the method I used, except I glued the veneer seam before applying it to the body.

https://youtu.be/xuHFc3BNJYM

[David King]

Eric, did you leave any veneer tape on the underside of the veneer or is that all stripped away before you glue it down for a wood to wood join at the centerline?

[Eric Baack]

I left the veneer tape on the bottom side to get glued in. I used the tape with holes for this purpose.

[Eric Baack]

Here are the control cavity, selector switch cavity and neck bolt plate. the router must have a bit of backlash in the Y-direction as the pockets came out a bit small even though they should have had a bit of extra space in them. I'm re-cutting the selector switch cover with a larger tool to offset this and will trim the rest with my spindle sander.

I made the cover plates by laminating some other veneer with the grain alternating perpendicular and then adding the curly maple to the top. The neck plate is made from some Pau Ferro left over from laminating the cap for another build.

[Eric Baack]

So I have some .05" thick x 2" wide black ABS strips and thought I'd try using that as purfing along with the laminated binding that I got from LMII.

I ended up using a 3d printer to make a binding trimmer to work with that thickness after I cut a couple of strips of it on the band saw.

Here's a section view, the blue part is the 1/4" router bit for the dremel. The little opening to the left of it is where the binding passes through the jig.



This highlighted piece is the spring loaded piece to keep the binding up against the control edge



This highlighted piece is adjustable with a 10-32 screw. So 1 full turn is 1/32" of adjustment.



And this one is the adapter for the dremel. It is kind of an extra piece but I had already modeled it from the binding slot jig that I had made already.