Hello All-
Long story short.
I am doing the trim for a very large house. I received some walnut burl veneer laid up on 1/2″ mdf for one of the rooms, only to discover the cabinet maker laid it up on one side only! I told him he needs to veneer both sides, for stability,no matter what is being laid up. Needless to say, the panels curled concave to the veneer side. Badly.
Now, for the real problem. The same cabinet maker made some cabinets out of Euro beech, with pomelle sapele veneered on one side of the beech door panels. The doors are so unstable that they are making the rails curve concave to the veneered side.
The question: Does anyone have experience with this? To save the very expensive pomelle veneers, I wondered if the panels could be removed from the frames, veneered on the opposite side, and left in its cauls long enough for it to retain a memory and, perhaps, stay flat and straight.
Thanks FWW Army,
Sean
Replies
Sean- have you shot the "cabinet maker" yet?
I don't have much experience with this type of thing, so am interested to see what the experienced have to say: but I can't see any reason not to remove the panels and veneer the other side-you may even be able to do this and re-use the frames? I also wonder if anybody would try to veneer the panels without removing them from the frames-could be tricky, but then again the tricky have tricks up their sleeves...
The answer to your question is that yes, you might be able to fix all the unbalanced veneered panels and parts by adding a balancing veneer to the back. I'd give the odds at about 40/60 against success, but it might work.
I'd get your cabinetmaker to come and collect the lot and take it all back to his/her workshop and make the correction. However, before you do that you'd also need to look carefully at the original contract, assuming there is one, and assuming you are in a position to do such things. There may be some written agreement where it was specified-- against the cabinetmaker's advice, that parts would be veneered on one side only.
What I'm getting at is I don't know where you fit into the relationship. Did you order the job, or are you just the installer, for instance? Who is responsible for overseeing it all, and who signed what, and who specified what?
The worst case scenario is a complete remake of any unsuitable parts-- a possibility it seems to me. If that is the case, who will have to pick up the bill? The architect, the interior designer, you, the homeowner, or the cabinetmaker?
I know all this stuff about contracts and business is only tangentially related to your original question, but I got a feeling from it that some of the business/contract elements may be relevant to your difficulties. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
Let it be the cabinetmaker's problem.
If this is somehow now your problem then your screw-up is WAY worse than his.
Edited 5/5/2007 8:06 am ET by ThePosterFormerlyKnownAs
Sean,
It sounds like these could be some really nice cabinets. I have to wonder at the cabinet maker who doesn't understand the importance of a balance veneer. That is veneering 101 stuff. Did he argue that it was unimportant?
Anyway, if you are trying to help him save his screw up for whatever reason I would suggest that when he applies the balance veneer it might be a good idea to also wet the show face to allow it to expand. Assuming it isn't already finished of course. Then keep the pieces clamped until both sides have had a chance to dry thoroughly.
Good luck, Rob
My guess is that, Yes, they can be 'saved'. However, I shudder at the mention of cauls to hold them flat after repair.
I would sticker them in a drier location until they returned to flat - they will. THEN, back-veneer them. Use the elements, not brute force.
Frosty
Fixing them will take considerable time and is not guaranteed: most likely the MDF will crack and burl veneers will blow apart. And when you are finished, you no longer have dead-flat panels, which is why you want to use MDF in the first place.
I'd tell the cabinetmaker to do them over and do them right. Make sure he feels it's a learning experience for him, so that he is less likely to grouse over having to do it again.
I worked on a job where we had many 4' wide mahogany paneled doors. The panels all started failing (splitting), and we told the door maker to come out and fix them. They cut out the panels and you could see why they failed: they had glued 1/2" mahogany onto 1/2" MDF (both sides); the mahogany moved, but the MDF didn't. Worse, the grain was oriented so you had movement at it's greatest for over 3' of mahogany. Really dumb construction, but the door maker ate the cost of replacing every one of about 40 panels. But that was after he was paid over $160,000 for the doors in the first place. He never argued about redoing the work, as his work obviously was badly flawed. Same for your cab maker.
A couple of thoughts:
If simply adding veneer to the back sides of the panels fails to flatten them, perhaps the panls could be kerfed first. A backer of beech could then be added. It would be best if this were at least 1/16" thick.
Was there a cross grain layer of veneer added to the front side prior to the pommele veneer? If so, this was an error with the result being the condition you are experiencing, assuming the door is now in a higher humidity environment.
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