How to remove #&!@#$! veneer tape

[Mitch]

My first veneer project.

I veneered a panel with bookmatched veneer. I joined the seam between the two bookmatched "leaves" together with gummed veneer tape. Put it in a press for a few hours. unitl the glue cured.

Once out of the press, how do I get the veneer tape off?

I've tried a scraper, but it still took a lot of pressure and repeated scrapings. And its still not all off. I have a lot of doors to do this way, so I'm looking for some labor saving secret.

I tried moistening the tape. This helped but the glue seemed to be left on the surface.

If there's no easy way to get it off, could I avoid this problem and use masking tape?

Mitch.

[David]

[Larry Jaques]

On 3 Apr 2005 19:49:37 -0700, the inscrutable "Mitch" spake:

The veneer god I saw in Sandy Eggo used the moisture-set veneer tape. His stuff went for $15k+. He had just ordered a $150k machine to use it, too.

The blue painter's masking tape is successfully used by David Marks.

[Darren King]

Hi,

In the UK I use a 'blue tape' which is a thin plastic tape made by Tessa. This is much easier to remove than gummed tape and leaves absolutely no residue what so ever. It doesn't have the same level of adhesion though, so if you are making up a large and complicated lay on I would probably stick (ho ho) to gummed.

When removing gummed tape I normally leave it until it absolutely dry and then sand it off using a sander with good dust extraction, in my case a Festool 150mm random orbit sander hooked up to a vacuum cleaner. The danger with removing the tape wet is that the gum gets pushed down onto the grain and then you will never get it out.

Cheers

Darren