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27th January 2024, 03:19 AM #1Novice
- Join Date
- Jan 2024
- Location
- Newcastle, NSW Australia
- Posts
- 11
Make our own wide veneers from old floor boards etc?
Beginner here - sorry beforehand for my ignorance.
I've been thinking about turning a bus or truck into a motorhome. I hate the "stick, stick, stick" feel of vinyl on my feet and really dislike the look of fake floating floor boards. I regularly see wood being discarded like unwanted dining tables, painting trestle planks, floor boards and timber frames of demolished houses, and even when I've cut through some old fence palings I've seen a rich redish wood that is very different to the lightweight (pine?) palings today which nail guns blow nails straight through. I'd like to feel natural wood under my feet but total weight is a concern.
All this made me wonder if it were possible to slice planks into veneers, but lengthways, not from the edge. Say about 3mm thick, but the full width of the typical house floorboard. Then I'd glue those down to a plywood floor and hit it with a floor sander (if necessary) and either leave it bare, oil, or varnish it. (Undecided - depends on if it's even possible first.)
So is that possible? To make your own wide thin veneer from discarded wood? If yes what tool/s would achieve that?
Of course I know about thicknessers/planers, but I figured slicing wood thinner horizontally first would mean less waste and easier on the thicknesser blades. (So for example, you're not spending 20 minutes running the same board through a planer again and again, to turn 90% or more of a plank into sawdust only to get one veneer.)
My first thought was a bandsaw, plank fed in on it's side, but would the blade be too unsafe and "wander" too much, making it impossible to get wide thin veneers? I would expect something the thickness of an old floor board or fence paling could produce about 3 veneers IF it can be sliced uniformly so minimal planing is required afterwards - but how!?
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27th January 2024, 09:36 AM #2
Yes a bandsaw can be used to make veneer.
https://timothycoleman.com/wp-conten...Own-Veneer.pdf
I have never done it personally but it will require well setup quality equipment, dont buy the first cheapest bandsaw you can find and expect that it is a simple job.
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27th January 2024, 06:12 PM #3
A decently set up bandsaw would be the way to go for resawing. However I think that if the boards were tongue and groove, you might need to slice the tongue and grooves off first to provide a level base to do the veneer runs. Also, floorboards tend to have a couple of grooves along the underside that you would need to plan around when deciding on yields etc. Also probably need to take applied finishes on the floorboards into account, wax/oil finishes could have significant penetration into the timber and could repel other finishes if face up, or cause defective gluing if placed face down. Varnished, Estapol, Poly finishes would also have reasonable penetration that could affect refinishing. Also, if you can get 3 or 4 slices out of a board there may be colour matching issues as the top slice would have some form of finish on it and the rest should be raw timber.
If you go this route, you need to be very aware of fasteners in the timber as well.I used to be an engineer, I'm not an engineer any more, but on the really good days I can remember when I was.
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27th January 2024, 07:19 PM #4
I use a lot of repurposed timber - largely because old growth timber is simply better than plantation stuff, and usually better than regrowth. But their are qualifications.
Floor boards usually have two nail holes every 450 or 600 mm - do you plug them, or ignore them, or what?
You may cut veneers with either a circular saw or a band saw. Both are expensive and their capital cost would be hard to justify unless you plan to do a lot of woodwork.
Band Saw
A small band saw will not cut accurately enough, so you will need to go reasonably large - say 400 mm upwards. Then you need a good fence, good blade and excellent set up. $$$'s.
Saw Bench
An old floor board was commonly 100 mm wide (4"). To slice this into veneer you need a saw with at least a 300 mm blade, preferably 350 mm. $$$'s.
Most bench saws cut a kerf ~3 mm wide. A ban saw kerf is about half that but not as straight, so probably little difference in reality.
Technique
I'll just run through the logistics of cutting veneer from an old floor board - dimensions 4" x ¾" - approx 100 x 19 mm.
- Saw off the tongue and groove - reduces width to a little over 90 mm.
- When cutting veneer you joint both sides before slicing.
- Top has remains of floor sealant - Jointing must be deep enough to remove it - 2 mm ?
- Bottom jointing may be shallower - 1 mm - unless it has that groove Malbs mentioned - then 3 mm.
- We are ready to slice veneer from flitch which is now 90 x 15 or so.
- We want 3 mm veneer so cut to 4 mm and thickness back to 3 mm.
- Turn flitch over with second jointed face against fence and cut second veneer.
- That's it. We cannot get a third veneer from that board.
Realistic Option
Perhaps the most cost effective option is to ask a local joinery shop to supply and cut the veneer that you require. Almost all commercial joineries will not allow second hand timber near their machines - risks are too high.
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17th April 2024, 03:02 PM #5Novice
- Join Date
- Jan 2024
- Location
- Newcastle, NSW Australia
- Posts
- 11
Thanks everyone. Sorry I disappeared I've been ill.
I'll have to revisit this later when I know exactly how much veneer I'd need. (Maybe it would make more sense just to buy it.) The back of most trucks I've been interested in seem to be 2.4m wide and about 4.2m long. But I might not need to cover the entire floor, like under kitchen cupboards and shower area.
Thanks again.