My activities in 2015 & my plans for 2016!

[Yorkie]

Splendid job on the speaker cabs Nick - thanks for posting the pics.

Using alphatic glue and ironing the veneer on when the glue has dried seems to have gained many converts - far less messy and problematical than  using hide glue, and no hide glue pot is needed.

The results speak for themselves.

I think that if we had a 'beauty parade' of our workshops, your former bothy would win hands down!

Don't worry about chipping into the thread Nick - really, I started it simply as a 'thank-you' for all the help and advice I'd received in 2015 from fellow forum members, which enabled me to successfully build several home-brew projects, that might otherwise have stalled. I always find other people's projects (and workshops!) more interesting than my own, so the more the merrier. In any event, many - if not most threads - tend to 'Segway' into other topics, just as in real life.

[Nick]

...Using alphatic glue and ironing the veneer on when the glue has dried seems to have gained many converts - far less messy and problematical than  using hide glue, and no hide glue pot is needed...

Not only that, if you make a mistake you can just get the iron & brown paper out again and move the veneer (or take it off)...

The stuff I used, Decoflex, comes in 8x4 sheets of book-matched veneer with pre-cracked grain so it goes round corners, even 90 degree ones, with relative ease.

Its mounted on very thin phenolic paper in the same colour as the veneer, so the back is perfectly smooth and non-absorbent and edges don't show. Lovely stuff to work with.

[Radio Fixer]

Decoflex only comes in large sizes and to do say two sides and a top of a table radio would be excessive. How much does it cost?

Maybe for an early radio alphatic glue shouldn't even be considered as its not traditional and how well would it bond to the remnants of the hide glue left on the ply body?

thanks Gary

[Nick]

8x4 sheets are about 70 quid - that's a lot of veneer. I got a slightly damaged sheet of black walnut for 30.

Maybe for an early radio alphatic glue   shouldn't even be considered...

What about replacement capacitors ?

[Radio Fixer]

Yes! you are right. Wonder about the contamination from old hide glue but probably OK. The damaged sheet was a good deal.

thanks Gary