I'm building a post and frame panel bed for my son and his wife. Pretty straight forward except the size (I've built 2 for us previously). I want something nicer than plywood for the panels and thought I'd make them instead. They will be ~15 x 17 and ~18x20 out of red oak. Resawing plain sawn boards to 1/2 or 5/8" and glueing seem fraught with problems trying to get them flat. What about resawing the wood to 1/8"+ and glueing them with contact cement to 1/4" MDF (on both sides)? That would ensure stability and eliminate movement. I know I have articles in my magazine collection but finding them is another effort. Thanks (Yeah I knwo I spel gud. :) )
I'm assuming 3, at most, panels for each the head & foot boards....
How about leaving the panel boards "standard" thickness/size, for gluing to gether, and just have your framing members a little thicker, to accommodate /coordinat3e with the thickness of the panels? I wouldn't think the addit ional weight would make much difference, if that is a consideration. Your panels aren't that large!
I presume the sizes you want are larger than your planer can handle. Options:
Do it old-school with handplanes--certainly workable but you'll need decent planes and if you've never done it before you can chew up a lot of wood learning.
Find some outfit with a big enough planer to do it for you and see what they'll charge.
Redesign for a panel size that will fit your planer.
With regard to your MDF idea, why not just get some plywood with the face veneers you want? If you can't find anything locally and you're in the US, Boulter Plywood should be able to set you up .
sawdustmaker wrote in news:XnsA5F38F8B39F48sawdustmaker@69.16.179.23:
If it were me, I'd edge glue the 5/8" boards and use a hand plane and/or belt sander to get them flat. Assuming you're careful when you glue the panels up, there should be no problem with that. 18" by 20" is not a large panel at all.
If you did want to glue up your own plywood, I'd use regular wood glue, not contact cement.
I think I'd either go all the way with solid panels or "cheat" and use oak plywood. If the wood is really dry, I might go for the solid wood but if there is any chance of it warping, plywood is the way to go. I prefer the Mission (Craftsman) look and would rip the wood into slats but that's a personal thing.
If it weren't for speelszechers, I cudn's post. But at least I have a shift and punctuation keys.
TIP: Quarter sawn wood generally has less movement across it's face than plain sawn.
IOW, quarter sawn would be more dimensional stable, where you need the dimensional stability ... across the face of the captured panels for this specific project.
If you can work that advantage into your design, try to use every advantage you can get.
That will actually work, except you do NOT want to use contact cement, and you would still want to glue the boards in the panel, edge to edge, with a good wood glue ... then use a flat mdf substrate to glue to ... that will get you the flatness you desire ... as long as your substrate is flat.
With regard to the glue for the "lamination" part:
You will absolutely, and most definitely want to use a "urea resin glue" ... a product like like Dap's Weldwood Plastic Resin, or Unibond.
That said, the product has a shelf life and can be difficult to find locally, and still fresh.
Here is a review I wrote on Amazon a few years back that has some tips on insuring freshness of urea resin glue for the Dap product:
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Just to show you that this lamination method for your panels will work for your frame and panel project, the end panels on this sideboard I built are done exactly as you describe above, except the hardwood veneer I used for the panel lamination was 1/2" thick, and was glued to the substrate with the urea resin glue:
1/8" is too thick for 'veneer' and will cause movement problems and contact cement is lousy for that sort of work although MDF is a decent substrate. If you are dead set on going in that direction, why not just buy some good veneer and use proper wood glue for attaching it. If you don't want the climb the veneer-jointing curve you can always buy really good looking paper-backed veneer for the purpose. I really mean to emphasize that contact cement is NOT for wood-attachment purposes -- I've had a couple of projects ruined by failures of the sort that it causes.
Except that the OP never mentioned the term "veneer".
But not too thick for what he wants to do, which is basically "laminating" two or more pieces of material to form a flat, or bendable surface; in this case flat, with one surface having the attributes of a particular type of wood.
The term has taken on different connotations in modern times, and if you get your knowledge solely off Google you would be sorely misinformed as to the various uses of the process of "lamination".
Everything from bentwood methods, to laminate wooden beams have been around since the beginning of the wooden ship era and are still in use today.
Swingman wrote in news:mcOdneilKf5zrIPKnZ2dnUU7- V snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
I have seen some remarkably complex scarfing methods to make beams for wooden ships, but I can't say I've seen laminations prior to the WW2 era (i.e. the advent of modern glues). I'd be interested to see an example of earlier laminated beams.
OP describes 1/8" wood and then proceeds to mention adhering it to a substrate -- that is veneering with exceptionally thick veneer. The problem here is that MDF is stable and 1/8" oak is not and seasonal changes restrained only by contact cement will not be sufficient to keep gaps from opening or puckers from forming. If one laminates multiple layers of thin wood with identical characteristics and in the same grain direction (AKA bent laminations which I've used on a few occasions) then there should be little or no seasonal movement problem (but contact cement is still crap for this purpose). I was merely pointing out that there is an easy time-proven method to achieve his desired result -- a flat panel that looks like solid oak. There _is_ a reason that so much fine furniture over the centuries has been covered in veneer.
Not sure why you want to make your own plywood, it is sold everywhere.
If you want nicer than plywood, then just use 3/4" oak boards. Raised panels is what makes them nicer than plywood. If you start out with flat boards, you should end up with flat panels. Expansion and contraction is handled by leaving space in the grooves holding the panels.
Also, stain and finish the panels before assembly. This not only insures unstained wood doesn't appear around edges, but will reduce panel movement with humidity changes. Also, quarter sawn doesn't move enough to worry about. Personally, I like face sawn for oak panels, it just looks more interesting than bland quarter/rift sawn oak.
Here is an Oak nightstand I made that has solid, 3/4" Oak panels about the same size as yours, I believe around 14"x20" panels.. These were made out of two pieces of 1x8" oak boards glued to make 14" panels. They are face sawn for visual interest, the worst way to do it as far as stability goes. I've been doing this for more years than I like to think, and never had a problem with wood movement doing this.
Well, that was interesting. I don't think that specific piece of whatever it was was a laminated timber (the site is obviously on the lunatic fringe and their "archeology" is likely all just wishful thinking), but further Googling reveals that the ancient Egyptians apparently laminated cedar (which is, by nature, very resinous) to make larger planks.
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