Jig to cut veneers on a bandsaw.

[Elisha Nichols]

Hello, I hope you can find the time to sit and watch these videos of my jig that helps you cut out veneers on a bandsaw. This is my a-level project and i’m looking for some evaluation on any things i should change or could improve. Please reframe from telling me the project is silly, it’s not, it has real purpose, and i’ve already made it. The idea is to help reduce wasted timber as much as possible.

 

[sams93]

It looks great and I like the dials to determine the spacing. What is the advantage that you see from cutting on the side away from the fence rather than setting the desired thickness as the gap between the blade and the fence, then cutting the desired piece on the fence side like you usually would.

R.e feedback:
- The results look good as the walnut you have cut into veneer appears to have come out nicely! I was a bit scared watching the user push the thin walnut board through without a push-stick though, this is exactly the sort of place where a push-stick is absolutely essential for safety, you can replace a wasted bit of wood but if you cut your finger off then it is a bit more problemmatic! Perhaps you could include room for convenient storage as an improvement.
- You could make the part that contacts the wooden board taller so that it supports it further up the veneer being cut, this would be helpful for bigger veneers.
- The dials look nice and they are clearly marked out with your system of lines. Using an offset dial centre hole to allow for distance setting is a clever idea. You could introduce some kind of sprung ball bearing underneath with small dimples in the right places to give it a 'positive click' when it is at a whole mm setting.
- Having it fit within a mitre slot is a good idea as its position relative to the blade can be adjusted, and could be used on various bandsaws. You presumably can set it up for your saw and remove/reinstall it without needing re-adjustment. A room for improvement might be having a way of securing it once the position is in place - a clamp or some strong magnets?
- You could replace the hex bolts which I can see being done up with a screwdriver with tightening levers or dials so that you don't need tools to set the jig.

 

[Ttrees]

Have you planned on incorporating some kind of holddown for the work since?
Steven Woodward has made some interesting videos using gate hinges.
Something of the sort would be advisable, so you could be using push sticks,
as it might leave the impression that it's OK to do without.
Looks a recipe for a cut thumb otherwise.

All the best

 

[Hornbeam]

I could only get 1 video to play so my comments are only based on the first one
There are 2 benefits which I see to you jig

• The ability to cut material with a sawn surface on both sides, ie you dont have to surface the board between veneer cuts. Im not sure if this is a big benefit as you have to surface everything sometime but it does mean that you can cut all your veneers with a sough sawn surface in one go and then put them through a thickness sander
• The black rotating wheel allows very precise setting of the thickness cut. I really like that bit and may look at how I could modify it to set a fence

Concerns

• Having to move the fence every time introduces errors both for verticality of the fence and slight variation in width
• What have you done to prevent any slight movement of the jig in the t slot. Also not all bandsaws have a t slot
• The thickness of the jig compromises where and how the right hand applies pressure to the piece of wood. The video is a real safety concern
• The fence being used is too low and when combined with the point above is an issue. Easy to rectify and would look better on the video to show you had considered
• When cutting veneers the approach being taken means that there is only the thickness of the veneer between the blade and the operator on every cut. I suggest you look at how to incorporate a featherboard to maintain pressure. This would also fit with your concept that the jig is the fixed reference point and you adjust the fence after every cut. Note with the traditional approach you always have the full thickness of teh block minus the veneer being cut between the blade and the operator
• What is the thickness range that you can cut as I would suggest about 1.5mm for veneers but you could also use this for cutting laminates so need to go up to around 6mm

Overall, you jig definitely works but I am not convinced of its benefits over the traditional approach and its not for me
Ian

 

[Sachakins]

Good start, need more work on safety aspect of it. Is it for making a simple book match piece or are you wishing to repeat for many thin veneers from one board.
Suggest a look at John Manura and his development of his accu slice jig



He has many development videos too.

His Web sites are helpful too.
https://www.accu-slice.com/

 

[Elisha Nichols]

It looks great and I like the dials to determine the spacing. What is the advantage that you see from cutting on the side away from the fence rather than setting the desired thickness as the gap between the blade and the fence, then cutting the desired piece on the fence side like you usually would.

R.e feedback:
- The results look good as the walnut you have cut into veneer appears to have come out nicely! I was a bit scared watching the user push the thin walnut board through without a push-stick though, this is exactly the sort of place where a push-stick is absolutely essential for safety, you can replace a wasted bit of wood but if you cut your finger off then it is a bit more problemmatic! Perhaps you could include room for convenient storage as an improvement.
- You could make the part that contacts the wooden board taller so that it supports it further up the veneer being cut, this would be helpful for bigger veneers.
- The dials look nice and they are clearly marked out with your system of lines. Using an offset dial centre hole to allow for distance setting is a clever idea. You could introduce some kind of sprung ball bearing underneath with small dimples in the right places to give it a 'positive click' when it is at a whole mm setting.
- Having it fit within a mitre slot is a good idea as its position relative to the blade can be adjusted, and could be used on various bandsaws. You presumably can set it up for your saw and remove/reinstall it without needing re-adjustment. A room for improvement might be having a way of securing it once the position is in place - a clamp or some strong magnets?
- You could replace the hex bolts which I can see being done up with a screwdriver with tightening levers or dials so that you don't need tools to set the jig.

Thank you so much for your feedback! I will definitely take into account many of the points you have made. With concerns of safety, usually we would use a push stick, the person in the video only didn’t as we were just doing a quick cut for the video!
Thanks -Elisha.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Elisha designed the jig for my use, so I should clarify a few things, since I know what she has done and why I wanted a jig that elicits the results that it does.

Re concerns:

• Having to move the fence every time introduces errors both for verticality of the fence and slight variation in width
• What have you done to prevent any slight movement of the jig in the t slot. Also not all bandsaws have a t slot
• The thickness of the jig compromises where and how the right hand applies pressure to the piece of wood. The video is a real safety concern
• The fence being used is too low and when combined with the point above is an issue. Easy to rectify and would look better on the video to show you had considered
• When cutting veneers the approach being taken means that there is only the thickness of the veneer between the blade and the operator on every cut. I suggest you look at how to incorporate a featherboard to maintain pressure. This would also fit with your concept that the jig is the fixed reference point and you adjust the fence after every cut. Note with the traditional approach you always have the full thickness of the block minus the veneer being cut between the blade and the operator
• What is the thickness range that you can cut as I would suggest about 1.5mm for veneers but you could also use this for cutting laminates so need to go up to around 6mm

Verticality of a fence should not be an issue; the fence should always lock up in a vertical position every time and anywhere along the fence rails. If it doesn't it is a fault of the bandsaw and not the jig and the issue should be addressed by the operator. A fence that is unreliable is next to useless for any cut it is asked to do. Mine are reliably square to the table and do not introduce drift as I tuned them to be so.

There are many guides on the market to adjust for slop in mitre slots. It is no different here, Elisha made a zero play slide bar for the bandsaw the jig is to be used on. Other bandsaws have standard 3/8 by 3/4 inch slots and there are some others. Facility to replace the bar for other sizes is accounted for. I don't recall any modern saw without a mitre slot. I did own an 80 year old Oliver once that didn't... The main body of the jig could just be clamped to the saw table, with a baton referencing of the table edge, for the exceptional saw that did not have a mitre slot.

The third point is completely opposite of what is true. It is always better to have the bulk of timber between the fence and blade, with the offcut being the narrower strip. Think of ripping an inch from a wide board on a circular saw. The inch rip is always on the offside of the blade, never between the blade and fence. When ripping veneer with this jig, the same squared reference face and edge of the timber bears against the fence and always does, no matter how many veneers are cut. Cutting the veneer on the fence side removes the reference face every time and this has to be re-established, every time, wasting material.

Admittedly, a tall fence should have been used for the video, and I would always use one for this type of work. The principal of the jig is not affected by the fence being low, however and to be fair, cutting the thin fillets on the off side of the blade makes a tall fence less critical.

A feather board would press the thin veneer into the blade and roughen up the cut. (Unless the point of pressure was only in front of the blade, in which case there would be little benefit over just using a push pad manually, but this would be user preference) The idea of this jig is to reduce waste and make the veneers suitable for laying straight from the saw. (Perhaps a tickle with a card scraper to remove the odd bumpy bits) Part of the issue with slicing veneer the other way, is guiding the cut by pushing the thick side of the wood into the blade whilst bearing against the thin veneer on the fence, tends to scar both the veneer and the baulk of timber. This inevitably means taking the timber back to the planer and the veneer to a thickness sander. More lost wood! A push stick right at the end of the cut, used carefully so as not to press the veneer into the blade's tooth set is achievable when cutting the veneer on the outside.

The jig has an adjustment range from zero as the initial datum setup toa maximum of 9mm. There is a cam type adjustment wheel that is infinitely adjustable between zero and max and a polygon type, which has predetermined settings at 1/2mm increments. This enables reliable repeatability at any time.

The main reason I wanted a device to help accurately size veneers on the off side of the bandsaw blade, was to reduce waste. It is amazing just how much wood turns to dust, just by making the bandsaw cuts. If every veneer is then thicknessed both sides and the mother board is re surfaced every time a veneer is taken, then potentially the amount of waste is tripled. From the point of view that veneer is cut to stretch further the wood from a precious board, it makes little sense to turn much of it into sanding/saw-dust and planer chips.

Also, when book-matching, the closer the veneers are to each other, the more accurate the match. Even just a bandsaw kerf can upset the match more hoped for, especially if the grain runout on the board is extreme. Add to that avoidable losses made resurfacing the block and thickness sanding the veneers and the match is often ruined and the whole board is then unused and wasted entirely.

Hope this clarifies some of the issues.

Mike.

 

[Fitzroy]

I think it's great, and also great to see a young person interested in a craft/trade.

My thoughts
- I like the cams as I feel they will give much more repeatable setting than moving the fence. You need a large, and hence obvious, inaccuracy in the cam position to see a significant inaccuracy in the thickness setting.
- Leaving the planed side of the board unmolested during the cut will mean you can cut multiple veneers from the board without having to reface between cuts
- Slop in the table t-slots and each point of the jig will reduce accuracy/repeatability. Thinking about how you have/could reduce this slop is an important consideration. For example your cams are slid onto a piece of threaded bar, would a piece of solid bar with only the top part threaded reduce slop. As this is an A-level project you may not need to remedy this but could include in any discussion on the project.
- When you set the blade zero point the user could introduce an error by pushing too firmly and deflecting the blade, is there anyway to provide a visual indication this is happening? Appreciate many things in life come down to competency but designing out the most obvious failure modes is good design!

Fitz

 

[sams93]

The third point is completely opposite of what is true. It is always better to have the bulk of timber between the fence and blade, with the offcut being the narrower strip. Think of ripping an inch from a wide board on a circular saw. The inch rip is always on the offside of the blade, never between the blade and fence. When ripping veneer with this jig, the same squared reference face and edge of the timber bears against the fence and always does, no matter how many veneers are cut. Cutting the veneer on the fence side removes the reference face every time and this has to be re-established, every time, wasting material.

This is just not true, the purpose of the fence is to provide the reference surface to give you your final dimension of the wanted piece. So it is the case that the offcut lies outside the blade, and not between the blade and the fence. This is why extension tables exist and are often not as precisely made as the main table of a machine, as part of their purpose is to support the bit of the board that isn't wanted, the offcut. If you are trying to cut a really wide board to width, wider than your saw can cope with, then you would use a track saw or similar.

• If you have a 10" wide board and want it to be 9" - you set the fence to 9'. Your desired piece lies between the fence and the blade, the offcut is on the other side of the blade.
• If you have a 10" wide board and want to make 1" strips - you set the fence to 1". Your desired piece still lies between the fence and the blade, the offcut is on the other side of the blade.

Remember, you are not 'trying to rip an inch off a wide board', rather you are trying to cut a board to the dimensions required. Imagine you have 100 different sized pieces of plywood in your workshop but you are making some drawers and you require tonnes of 10" wide boards. The purpose of the fence is that you can set it to 10" and then run all your 100 various sized pieces of ply through the saw and you will have 100 pieces 10" wide. This is the same for veneers, which you would cut at say 1.5mm on the saw by fixing the fence at 1.5mm, and then would send them through a drum sander to bring to your final thickness of 1mm.

___

If I am honest, I think this is where a lot of the confusion and criticism about this jig has arisen from. People have cut veneers without issue for decades in the traditional manner between the blade and the fence. Multiple forum members have pointed it out across the different threads that have been made, however it has repeatedly been disregarded or replies to the effect of 'don't want to discuss that bit'. The comment quoted above might be the reason for the confusion. I think it would be helpful to reflect on these comments by members, and review the understanding of how a band saw/table saw is normally used, as it might help you to appreciate why there has been so many comments on this aspect.
__
None of this is to criticise this young lady at all, who clearly has an interest in woodworking which is great. She has come up with a concept to solve a percieved problem, and she has designed and made a solution which is built well and looks great. That is perfect for her A-level project.

The questions raised here are real-world ones, and are about whether there has been a fundamental misunderstanding leading to the solving of a 'problem' that actually doesn't exist in practice.

 

[Fitzroy]

This is just not true, the purpose of the fence is to provide the reference surface to give you your final dimension of the wanted piece. So it is the case that the offcut lies outside the blade, and not between the blade and the fence. This is why extension tables exist and are often not as precisely made as the main table of a machine, as part of their purpose is to support the bit of the board that isn't wanted, the offcut. If you are trying to cut a really wide board to width, wider than your saw can cope with, then you would use a track saw or similar.

• If you have a 10" wide board and want it to be 9" - you set the fence to 9'. Your desired piece lies between the fence and the blade, the offcut is on the other side of the blade.
• If you have a 10" wide board and want to make 1" strips - you set the fence to 1". Your desired piece still lies between the fence and the blade, the offcut is on the other side of the blade.

Remember, you are not 'trying to rip an inch off a wide board', rather you are trying to cut a board to the dimensions required. Imagine you have 100 different sized pieces of plywood in your workshop but you are making some drawers and you require tonnes of 10" wide boards. The purpose of the fence is that you can set it to 10" and then run all your 100 various sized pieces of ply through the saw and you will have 100 pieces 10" wide. This is the same for veneers, which you would cut at say 1.5mm on the saw by fixing the fence at 1.5mm, and then would send them through a drum sander to bring to your final thickness of 1mm.

___

If I am honest, I think this is where a lot of the confusion and criticism about this jig has arisen from. People have cut veneers without issue for decades in the traditional manner between the blade and the fence. Multiple forum members have pointed it out across the different threads that have been made, however it has repeatedly been disregarded or replies to the effect of 'don't want to discuss that bit'. The comment quoted above might be the reason for the confusion. I think it would be helpful to reflect on these comments by members, and review the understanding of how a band saw/table saw is normally used, as it might help you to appreciate why there has been so many comments on this aspect.
__
None of this is to criticise this young lady at all, who clearly has an interest in woodworking which is great. She has come up with a concept to solve a percieved problem, and she has designed and made a solution which is built well and looks great. That is perfect for her A-level project.

The questions raised here are real-world ones, and are about whether there has been a fundamental misunderstanding leading to the solving of a 'problem' that actually doesn't exist in practice.

I agree that traditionally the retained piece is between the fence and blade, thus utilising the fence as the reference surface. The problem that I have encountered when wanting multiple similar narrow pieces is that after each cut you no longer have a reference face on the piece of wood, and you need to reestablish this before the next cut, which is an extra step in the process.

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Re. comments above.

The idea of this jig is to always maintain the same reference face, which it achieves. It reduces waste by not having to re establish a reference face every cut, which it achieves. It effectively measures the cut on the offside of the fence, so the main bulk of wood is always between the fence and the blade; not bearing the main bulk of wood against the thin veneer bearing against the fence. Think about slicing a 1mm veneer from a 4 inch thick by 8 inch tall board. All that weight pressing the veneer into the fence with the blade between, scaring both surfaces and making it necessary to thickness sand the veneer to remove them and surface plane a new face (maybe having to square the edge too) of the board. Waste at every step!

I have used the jig and measured the veneers with a digital caliper each time. The results are consistent and certainly better than I acheive moving the fence each time without the aid. The veneers are certainly cleaner then cutting with the veneer trapped between the blade and the fence. I can lay them straight from the saw.

If people prefer to cut veneer against the fence, then that is perfectly fine. However, I am convinced there is a less wasteful way sawing veneers and I think this is one possible solution. I am so concerned with the miss-match of veneer for book-matching, caused by too much material being removed between each leaf, that I seldom use a blade wider than 1/2 inch to do this. Wider blades are thicker and this in itself causes more waste than I like.

Incidentally, there is the facility for dimensioning tenons and cutting bridle joints using this jig, maintaining the same face side against the fence, which I think is an added bonus.

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

.... The veneers are certainly cleaner then cutting with the veneer trapped between the blade and the fence.....

If so, why?
Maybe need to improve your act doing it the normal way?

 

[Blackswanwood]

I think this is ingenious. The only suggestionI would make has already been made which is to make it quicker/easier to use by replacing the hex bolts.

Not sure why Jacob’s felt the need to add a snarky comment - don’t let his negativity put you off Elisha.

 

[sams93]

I think this is ingenious. The only suggestionI would make has already been made which is to make it quicker/easier to use by replacing the hex bolts.

Not sure why Jacob’s felt the need to add a snarky comment - don’t let his negativity put you off Elisha.

I totally see why it might seem snarky and perhaps it could have been worded more carefully, but if you look through the previous posts and threads about this there has been a complete reluctance until this latest post to acknowledge that the existing way people already cut veneers does actually work and it has made discussions more difficult.

I think that generally people have tried to make it clear that the jig that Elisha and Woodbrains have made is great, with some real strong points in the construction. She has made something that is useable, works for its intended purposes, and meets the criteria she set out. It is brilliant that she is enthusiastic about this and nobody is saying anything otherwise. It provides a different way to cut veneers of a repeatable thickness which might work better for some people or in some circumstances.

As @woodbrains mentions, there are plenty of ways to achieve the same thing. This is certainly one way that you can cut veneers, and it does, as he points out, keep the reference face of the workpiece which runs along the fence unaffected by the previous cut.

I seldom use a blade wider than 1/2 inch to do this. Wider blades are thicker and this in itself causes more waste than I like.

@woodbrains - Question on this, where do you find that wider blades are thicker? Usually blades of a particular range are all the same thickness regardless of their width? It is the set of the teeth which determines the amount of material removed, Ian at Tuffsaws does his 'vari-tooth' blade which has less set exactly for this purpose.

https://tuffsaws.co.uk/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=18

 

[Jacob]

I think this is ingenious. The only suggestionI would make has already been made which is to make it quicker/easier to use by replacing the hex bolts.

Not sure why Jacob’s felt the need to add a snarky comment - don’t let his negativity put you off Elisha.

I was addressing Mike not Elisha!
Has anything changed with this project since it was run past us last year? https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/cutting-veneers-on-a-band-saw.143204/#post-1669370

 

[Jacob]

.....

The main reason I wanted a device to help accurately size veneers on the off side of the bandsaw blade, was to reduce waste. It is amazing just how much wood turns to dust, just by making the bandsaw cuts. If every veneer is then thicknessed both sides and the mother board is re surfaced every time a veneer is taken, then potentially the amount of waste is tripled.

Either resurface the "motherboard" every time and then surface the veneer later,
or saw the veneer and surface both sides later, as necessary
Same difference whichever side you cut it from, except easier the second way.

Hope this clarifies some of the issues.

Mike.

Nope!
I have passed thin stuff through my thicknesser with the aid of a PTFE slab on the table, to reduce friction and also to be able to set it for thinner cut - as tables are designed to stop well short of hitting the blades, for obvious reasons - about 4mm on mine. With a low friction table and very sharp blades you can thickness much thinner veneers
Hope that helps.

 

[Hornbeam]

Firstly full credit to Elisha for developing a jig which does work. Well done

The question as to whether it is an improvement over the standard approach is probably not something that Eilisha can really answer due to her limited experience of this process.
I think that some of Woodbrains comments are totally incorrect.
As said by Sams93 tpeople have cut veneers in the traditional approach for years
Cutting bandsawn veneers particularly wider ones is a technical job and requires very careful set up of the fence, blade selection and tensioning feed speed pressure etc
At least one surface of the veneer has to be finished so passing the surface over a planer between cuts does this and having a semifinished surface on the as laid veneer makes it much easier to final finish the veneered item
This jig is a bit like developing a new sharpening guide, while it does work I suspect that with practice and skill development most people will drift back to not using a jig

 

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Oh, my. It seems the reason I stopped posting here years ago still hasn't gone away. I'm sure people here do not read and understand, just oppose anything that they have no experience of because it is different.

Jacob said:

Either resurface the "motherboard" every time and then surface the veneer later,
or saw the veneer and surface both sides later, as necessary
Same difference whichever side you cut it from, except easier the second way.

The jib obviates the need to resurface ever time, since the cut is not made on that side of the board, as I explained before.

Both sides of the veneers do not need to be resurfaced, They can be laid straight from the saw. When the board is completed, the rough upper surface is hand planed smooth as though the board was just solid wood. Hand planing enables just the barest amount of material to be removed to remove the saw marks in a controllable manner.

If ten veneers are cut from a board there is in the order of 9mm of waste from the bandsaw cuts alone. A wider blade makes a wider kerf and this wastage is even more severe. Having to resurface the board each time will waste more. Thickness sanding both sides of each veneer loses more still. (Why people think veneer cannot be laid straight from a nicely sawn surface eludes me. Every veneering instruction book I have ever read shows the use of a toothing plane to rough up the ground before laying the veneer, so why sand the underside of the veneers?) For ten 1mm veneers, I conservatively estimate that 20mm of wood is wasted sanding the veneers and resurfacing the board each time along with the saw kerf losses. That is plain nuts if doing it with this jig halves that.

I have to labour the point about the miss-match of book-matched veneers when more material than necessary is removed between each leaf. My expectation of this is clearly much higher than some here. Or perhaps, being a cabinet maker and not a window joiner, I have actually made cabinets this way and am not just a commentator.

If people do not believe that there is less waste made using the jig, then that is their prerogative; but I have actually used the jig and since it is the only one of its type...

Mike.

 

[Jacob]

Hello,

Oh, my. It seems the reason I stopped posting here years ago still hasn't gone away.

What, me?

I'm sure people here do not read and understand, just oppose anything that they have no experience of because it is different.

We have experience! Lots of it!

If ten veneers are cut from a board there is in the order of 9mm of waste from the bandsaw cuts alone.

Say one 1mm saw kerf per veneer cut - minus one, whichever way you do it.

Jacob said:

Either resurface the "motherboard" every time and then surface the veneer later,
or saw the veneer and surface both sides later, as necessary
Same difference whichever side you cut it from, except easier the second way.

The jib obviates the need to resurface ever time, since the cut is not made on that side of the board, as I explained before.

Either way you don't have to re-surface every time, or surface plane at all if the cut is neat enough for your purposes.
You are trying to design a solution to something which is simply not a problem

Both sides of the veneers do not need to be resurfaced,

True. So what?

If people do not believe that there is less waste made using the jig, then that is their prerogative;

Yes you can believe what you like but it doesn't make it true

but I have actually used the jig and since it is the only one of its type...

I'm sure others must have experimented with alternatives but disbanded them when they didn't produce any advantage. Normal really - the trick is to know when to give up!

PS it's difficult to see how there could be any waste saving by sawing veneers off one face rather than the other - in fact it makes no sense at all.

 

[Hornbeam]

I ran a sheet metal prototyping workshop for 10 years and one thing I learnt was that you have to listen to customer/potential customer feedback.
My feedback both positive and negative is based on 30+ years practical cabinet making experience including regular cutting of laminates and veneers. If I thought that I could increase the yield from a figured piece of wood by 50% then I would jump at it.