Veneering Techniques.

[pwdrive]

Solid wood (not strip wood) softwood doors are a pain unless they are expensive ones, they go all over the place if you have centrall heating or constantly changing humidity levels.
A pressed hardboard panel door is better and lighter, the doors made from finger jointed stripwood are more stable than a solid one, I have these in our house, all half glazed, still straight with no warping. or swelling, light stained and just two thin coats of acrylic varnish to seal them, a slight rub down then wax polish, come up good evry time.

Lawrence.

These doors are certainly a high density chipboard (ie, not MFI low density), edged and veneered. As such, they are dimensionally very stable.

When I build the solid oak furniture, I take account of grain and grain curve as I assemble large pieces (say, for table tops). I then put on ends with slotted pegging to take account of any movement. By using pews that are 150+ years old, I can find stable planks up to 50cm wide and as long as 5m occasionally. I don't waste them by cutting or slitting them down. Those big pieces are used to their full potential in table or sideboard tops.

Over the decades, I have followed tips given to me by my gradfather on how to build furniture with inbuilt stability. I topped this off by diligently following Norm's New Yankee Workshop episodes - I taped them all and now have transferred them onto DVD. He has many tips and ideas apart from just building pieces of furniture. Before you all rush, I won't copy those DVDs for others as they are still copyright (which I respect) and mine are purely an archive for my own personal use.

Thank you all for the responses so far - maybe we should get back to Col's wonderful veneering of cabinets.

Colin

Hello Colin, yes some of the composite materials used today are very good, nice to see you using that old oak, my friend is a very good joiner and has made some excellent stuff bespoke to order using oak, he has his own kiln etc, I used to work with him doing green oak framing such as large roof trusses and beams for old and new style buildings, very large mortice and tennon joints and big lumps of oak, we too used oak pegs for drawing and securing the joints, all the pegs were cleaved and were from a guy in Romania for a few euro's a sack, we found that French oak was the best for green oak and air dried oak beams, they manage their oak stands very well out there, unlike here.
Sometimes if the structural calculations required it we would use alloy phosphor bronze in the round for the pegs on large span trusses.
Good to see you pay attention to grain direction and the way timber moves etc, the way timber dries out from fresh is quite specific to the timber dimension and how it's cut from the tree, sometimes some folk don't see that.
I think that veneering over composite boards etc is fine, after all back in time the veneer was appliedin many cases to a cheap timber such as pine etc.

Good luck with your projects.

Lawrence.

[AlanBeckett]

.... we found that French oak was the best for green oak and air dried oak beams, they manage their oak stands very well out there, unlike here.

They do have a tad more room than us, and we used ours up beating their Navy.

Alan

[Retired]

Hi,

thanks for adding your excellent tip regarding how you constructed your oak drawer unit legs Colin; it's a good demonstration of how to get around the problem of needing thick stock but having non to hand; as you say Colin infilling at the back of the leg where it can be viewed adds the finishing touch; I must admit I hadn't noticed.

Vale Veneers is a well known online supplier of lots of wonderful veneers and to answer your question Colin I think most of these veneer suppliers will try to keep their prices around average; they will be very much aware as to what their competitors are charging knowing customers will be shopping around.

It is possible though by shopping around to save a lot of money; I spend time browsing the web visiting a number of sites before deciding to purchase; one thing I do prefer is a site accepting PayPal payments as I know this to be secure; another benefit of using PayPal is that once the item has been paid for using PayPal the seller is guaranteed payment so can despatch the item immediately which I find very useful.

If you are looking for a specific veneer Colin then it is easier to browse for this as it saves wading through pages of assorted veneers although it is possible to come upon a veneer looking very similar but much cheaper; if you intend to stain then a cheaper veneer can be made to resemble a much dearer veneer all it takes is a little practice.

Our car is always garaged and as I have my big machinery in the garage this causes me lots of problems but given today's society where criminals are looked after and respected more than victims I feel happier having the car locked up. Yesterday I turned the heating on in the workshop then an hour later wandered in with the intention of installing the motor unit into the Jubilee lathe; I had completely forgotten that the motor was still in the garage?

I tidied the workshop and turned the heating off. I couldn't face yet another wet trip into the garage as it was raining; the car was blocking access to the bench holding the motor and to try to squeeze past the car could end up with damage to the car ; I would have to pull the car out and by the time I had carried the motor up into the workshop the car would have had a good soaking. Putting the car away wet isn't good for the cast iron beds on the machines.

I can stand a single trip to the garage but it never works out like this; I always end up making multiple trips to collect tools and materials; had I installed the motor unit this was only to test if everything fitted; I would then have to carry it back into the garage to weld brackets etc and so it goes on. It frustrates me deeply because this week alone the weather has been its usual dire self; the last few days has been dense fog and rain but today just for a change as I look out into the gloom it is snowing; this climate is so depressing.

Completely off topic but relating to the weather last Saturday whilst at Rufforth Auto Jumble I bought a Karcher Window Vac as demonstrated on ideal world shopping channel; this vac was boxed and brand new only costing £30 wich is an absolute bargain and the stall holder told me he would be surprised if he had any left to sell by 10am as they were flying off the shelf.

We have a two roomed extension to the rear of the bungalow which is single glazed and left unheated so each morning after the frost and ice if the windows are not iced up on the inside I spend time removing lots of condensation using tea towels. This new Karcher is a delight being rapid to use and leaving the glass squeaky clean and dry at a stroke; below is a picture I've just taken of one of the windows clearly showing just how good this Karcher is; on the left is a single stroke of the Karcher on the right is the remaining condensation; I cleared these windows before going to bed last night. My Karcher is model WV50.

http://www.idealworld.tv/Karcher_WV55_Re..._8009_9095}

Perhaps owning this Karcher will assist me as it might be possible to dry the car using it? It's amazing just how much water it removes and the reservoir is simply emptied by pulling a rubber bung free.

Kind regards, Col.

   

[camallison]

Paypal is my pal too

I suppose we are lucky where we are on the outskirts of Yarm. The crime rate is very low and our cars are pretty safe. Up to 18 months ago, and for the previous 17 years, we lived half way between Gloucester and Bristol, just off the M5. The crime rate there was horrendous but I installed several dummy CCTV cameras (biguns and littleuns) around the house. Our car and motorhome (see pic) never suffered any problems as a result. Next to the "cameras", I mounted IR floods that had a twilight switch in and they came on with a low red light, giving the impression that the installation was real.

I agree though, a warm workshop is the place to be at this time of year.

Colin

[pwdrive]

.... we found that French oak was the best for green oak and air dried oak beams, they manage their oak stands very well out there, unlike here.

They do have a tad more room than us, and we used ours up beating their Navy.

Alan

Yes they do have more room Alan, but compared to France, Germany etc we manage our hardwoods not as well, there was a point when the coal mines were all destroyed that a lot of hardwood was virtually valueless as the mines used a lot of timber, people and politicians are now taking a view to plant more hardwoods because they a "native" a lot of these new plantings are at the expense of the poor old spruce/pine/fir 'cos it's trendy, short sighted in my view.
When the deadly larch disease hit the South West and spread up the line did the powers that be have a media frenzy with it...No... When the Ash caught a cold did they?...You bet.

Interesting point about the Navy Alan, did you know that there were "wars" over the Baltic timbers, an oak ship with no mast wasn't much use except for prison hulks. The politics of wood eh.

Lawrence.

[pwdrive]

Hello Colin, I like your motorhome, always wanted one of them or an Airstream towed with a Chevy truck!

Lawrence.

[camallison]

Thanks - It was one of my presents to myself as I retired. As you can possibly guess, it is now heavily modified inside to suit us. It even has a small electronics workshop area! Some call them dinettes. We lived for many years in mainland Europe, and now I want to see more of the UK. Hence the van - always all packed and ready to go except for bedding, clothing and groceries. We were out this weekend in it in the Whitby area - it has a double floor and is winterised so that the current weather doesn't trouble us.

It is based on a 2007 Renault Master "truck" and, surprisingly, is easier to drive than our Vauxhall Zafira. I can cruise all day in it and still be fresh at the end of the journey. One of the mods I did to it was to fit solar panels on the roof and a controller to put juice into the habitation area batteries. They are 200 watts in total and even on a dull day, still manage some charge. Then a bit of jiggery pokery and I "bridged" to the vehicle battery so that when it falls below a certain voltage level, the charge is diverted there. Means the van is always ready to go with a full battery.

Colin

[This is where we were this weekend - attached]

[pwdrive]

Proper job there Colin, you got me thinking again, itchy feet and all that, no poll tax...Ideal.

Good luck on your jouneys.

Lawrence.

[Retired]

Hi,

Nice motor-home Colin; I bet it keeps you busy cleaning it?

About 40 years ago I owned what is now a classic VW the one with the split windscreen and huge VW badge on front; this had the cooker hinged on the side door; it was lovely to drive with acceleration of 0/60 in about a fortnight. These are very desirable now and worth a great deal more than the £150 I paid for mine. I resprayed it using red cellulose applying the paint with a Burgess "Spray-it".

Kind regards, Col.

[camallison]

Thanks Col - at the end of each season I have it deep cleaned and waxed by the local motorhome service chap. It takes him the best part of 4 hours to do. That protects it over the winter and, when it has warmed up a bit, I start washing it with a very long-handled soft brush connected to my jet washer. At the end of that wash, I introduce a wax to the wash water and it comes up sparkling clean. The most important part is to keep moss off the roof.

A friend of mine has one of those split-screen VW campers you describe and has had it since his student days in the early 70s. Over the years, he has kept it maintained and in good body and chassis condition. About 4 years ago, he and I took it apart, had the body and chassis treated, the bodywork completely resprayed, and uprated the engine to include a turbo. His wife worked on all the upholstery and internal fabric, including the headlining. Once reassembled, he now wins prizes at the classic VW camper meets. They still go camping in it too.

My own children have now bought motorhomes too and manage to get their children away in them most weekends. The grandkids think it is only natural to go somewhere different every weekend.

Colin