I’m wondering if anyone has any direct experience with laminating unlike materials to form one piece. As a gift for friends, I’m building a frame and panel blanket box made from bubinga and lined with aromatic red cedar. My bubinga stock was twisted enough that after milling for the upper and lower stretchers, my thickness falls short of 3/4” coming in at only 5/8” total thickness. My thought was since the inside of the box is cedar, one possible solution might be to glue laminate 1/8” of cedar to the 5/8” of bubinga bringing the total back to my desired 3/4” thickness. That then raises the question, what about expansion and differences in density? I’ve never tried it and frankly don’t have a clue.
Additional relevant information is that this is a rather large box and the largest individual piece is 50”x3”x3/4”. The panels will be stable as they are constructed from 3/4” Baltic birch ply veneered on both sides with waterfall bubinga and bordered with 1/4” wenge edging all the way around. My intent was to use floating mortise and tenon joinery on the rails and stiles but my parts are roughed out long enough to change my choice of joinery if needed.
Is it worth a try or am I barking up the proverbial tree here? Am I better off building with the under sized stretchers or do I need to bite the bullet and spend the money again for thicker, straight bubinga? That’s of course not an inexpensive prospect and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for any alternate solution. I hope you’re all having a great day and thanks in advance for any input.
Rich
Replies
My gut instinct tells me that 1/8" cedar will adapt to whatever the bubinga does, and your lamination should work OK. That said, it's not a conventional solution, and I'd much prefer to see you laminate strips of bubinga (say, 3 x 1/4" thick) to get what you need.
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?lang=e&id=1
Hi David,
Not being a conventional guy, unconventional sounds pretty attractive to me [grin]. I thought of adding more bubinga and that is a solid solution. I also thought that since the lining is going to be cedar anyway that if this is viable, it opens opportunities to add some interest when opening the lid. There would be a contrasting pin stripe around the upper surface. If I add the cedar to the back of the panels before adding the wenge panel borders, that would leave a black contrasting pinstripe on the inside that carries through to the outside. More than just differences between the waterfall and straight grain bubinga, I'm hoping to break up the monotony of utilizing the same material for the entire box by adding some subtle color variation as well. You know how the minds eye works though. There's always a chance that once it all comes together I look at it and wonder, what was I ever thinking? Then again one never knows, the reverse could also be true.
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. Inspiration comes from everywhere.
Rich
Your stock is not very wide so it won't make any difference if you laminate on a layer of weak cedar.
Bubinga is one of the densest, strongest, most stable woods on the planet.
Did I mention this stuff is strong ? Well let me tell you.
Aromatic red cedar is weak crapy stuff that is full of voids and holes. There is no way a thin layer of cedar is going to overpower a thicker layer of bubinga. I like the smell of the cedar though. Some don't.
Now about the twisty stuff. I would scrap it and start over. Twisted wood is a sign that it has a lot of internal stress in it. It will continue to wind and unwind with the changes in the atmosphere. Bubinga is stable if you get good sound stuff. The stuff you have came off the saw mill fairly straight but twisted as it dried. What is that telling you ?
Nah dude nah. Use this twisty stuff and this project you are making will be dancing a jig every time the weather changes.
roc
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 9/1/2009 12:34 am by roc
Edited 9/1/2009 12:38 am by roc
Edited 9/1/2009 12:55 am by roc
Hi Roc,
Thanks for the input. The milled stock came from 8/4 that I resawed in half and milled to thickness after it stabilized. I milled these peices back in December of this year and they have remained perfectly straight being stacked and stickered for all these months. All seems stable and well to this point so I think the stresses where released on resawing. The grain runs pretty consistantly straight through the length of the pieces.
One thing that does come to light in reading your comment though, is that cedar is very soft and if I do this I'll clearly need to switch to mortice and cut tenons rather than floating tenons. I can't have a matching mortice in the stretcher end grain since the cedar will never be structural enough to support the pressure of a floating tenon and the dimension of the mortice would make that side very thin. Thank you again.
Rich
>peices from back in December of this year have remained perfectly straight<Hey that's great news ! Sounds like you got a handle on all this. I was just working the worst case scenario. Shame to have somebody go to all that work, especially for someone they care for, and have a problem with stability.I hope you will put up photographs when you can.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled