Backyard Birds – Part 18

I had all the marquetry done for the door of my cabinet, so it was finally time to glue it to my substrate and put it in the press.

To prepare, I glued some scrap wood and fiberboard to the corners of the veneer in order to keep the substrate aligned properly when tightening the press. This usually isn’t necessary, because I would typically make both the marquetry and the substrate oversized and cut it down to size on the table saw. But since my marquetry was going all the way to the edges of the door, I needed to make sure that the image was aligned correctly. I used a hot glue gun to attach the scraps. The hot glue is strong enough to keep things in place temporarily while still being easy to peel off once panel is glued.

I tried to take off a bunch of the excess veneer tape on the other side of the marquetry, but in the end, I decided it wasn’t worth it. I had to dampen the veneer tape in order to remove it, and some of the veneers that I used expanded a lot when they got wet. That expansion was causing problems, so I stopped. Unfortunately, the veneer didn’t shrink back down, so I had to make some fixes before even putting it in the press.

I got one final picture of the panel before putting it in the press.

Instead of using the normal wood glue that I usually use, I glued this panel with Unibond 800, a urea resin glue. It’s a really effective adhesive, but it has formaldehyde in it and it goes bad more quickly than regular wood glue, so my dad and I don’t use it for everyday gluing.

In order to glue up the panel, I set down my marquetry panel in the press with the clean side up. Then I spread glue on the substrate and laid it in place on top of the marquetry. Then I spread another layer of glue on the other side of the substrate and covered that with the cherry veneer that I had chosen for the inside of the door. I stacked some large sheets of plywood and boards on top of all that and tightened the screws on the press.

It’s always a little scary pressing a piece that I’ve worked on for a long time, but I knew that my panel was safe because George the Animal Steel was watching over it.