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 Veneered Borders

Wood Veneer Borders

Making a veneered border is a simple task...

Many projects done with veneer, will have a decorative border, or inlay. These are available commercially, and in hundreds of patterns. Some are rather simple to create, while others are very complex, and would be more practical to buy. Typically, they come in three foot lengths. Since we use borders fairly often, we have Jigs made up for different widths, which permit us to produce them rather quickly.

Picture one shows the end of our veneer bench. These jigs hanging here allow us to pick a jig based on how wide we want the strip. The jigs area a piece of plywood, with a spacer on both ends. The veneer is held against the plywood, between these spacers. Then the straight edge is held against the spacers. The jig is then set aside, and the veneer is cut along the straight edge. The second photo shows blue tape acting as reinforcement for the veneer, as this particular veneer breaks rather easily, when cut across the grain. (quarter sawn sapele). The tape isn't needed when cutting with the grain. Photo three shows a close up of the end of the jig. Photo four shows about two minutes worth of cutting strips, using this method. They were cut with a scapel.

The photos above shows cutting cross banding. The back side has blue tape on it. After the strip has been cut, it is stuck to another piece of tape. The thin strips of maple, cut in the above photo, can now be added to the cross banding.

The completed assembly can now have the tape cut, using the maple as a guide for the scapel. The next step is to cove the face side of the border with veneer tape, and after that has dried, remove the blue tape from the back.

While this is a simple pattern to make, it adds considerable visual appeal to whatever you use it on. The variations that can be created are infinant. Let you're imagination go wild.

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