Have found a piece of plywood about 4 mm thick. It had been in the damp and
the laminates ( each about 1 millimeter thick) have separated. The top
veneer is a nice hard wood and is *very* thin at about a third of a
millimeter and sticks fast (despite the others coming adrift in the damp) to
another thin wood that is about half of millimeter thick.

This top piece ( the third millimeter top veneer and the half millimeter
together ) i would like to cut into a rounded shape.

To avoid it splitting whilst I cut it to shape, ( I thought I would like to
use scissors); is there anything you can advise a novice to do that will
help with this?

Friends have suggested; more soaking in water, steaming in kettle steam, or
hot water. Thanks for any advice.

"john d hamilton" wrote in
:

*snip*

This top piece ( the third millimeter top veneer and the half
millimeter together ) i would like to cut into a rounded shape.

To avoid it splitting whilst I cut it to shape, ( I thought I would
like to use scissors); is there anything you can advise a novice to do
that will help with this?

Friends have suggested; more soaking in water, steaming in kettle
steam, or hot water. Thanks for any advice.


Try a test piece first, and see what you're up against. I'd suggest
taping the cut lines and cutting through the tape. That'll hold the
grain together better.

Make sure to use sharp scissors.

Puckdropper
--
If you're quiet, your teeth never touch your ankles.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm

On Oct 1, 5:33 am, "john d hamilton" wrote:
Have found a piece of plywood about 4 mm thick. It had been in the damp and
the laminates ( each about 1 millimeter thick) have separated. The top
veneer is a nice hard wood and is *very* thin at about a third of a
millimeter and sticks fast (despite the others coming adrift in the damp) to
another thin wood that is about half of millimeter thick.

This top piece ( the third millimeter top veneer and the half millimeter
together ) i would like to cut into a rounded shape.

To avoid it splitting whilst I cut it to shape, ( I thought I would like to
use scissors); is there anything you can advise a novice to do that will
help with this?

What the marquetry guys do is sandwich the veneer between two thin
pieces of wood and use a very fine blade.

I'm not guaranteeifyng this or nuffin', but you may get good results by
cutting with the whole thing - wood and scissors together - completely under
water. This dampens (!) out the high frequency "chatter" and lets the cut get
all the energy. As you probably know, this is a great way of cutting acrylic
or even thin glass so I suspect it'll work pretty well for _many_ veneer
types and combinations, if not for your particular sample.
Try it out on a "scrap" section as this will void your warranty wot I can't
take responsibility for, hereafter and blah blah... standard disclaimer.

Good luck with it.


On Wed, 1 Oct 2008 10:33:19 +0100, john d hamilton wrote
(in article ):

Have found a piece of plywood about 4 mm thick. It had been in the damp and
the laminates ( each about 1 millimeter thick) have separated. The top
veneer is a nice hard wood and is *very* thin at about a third of a
millimeter and sticks fast (despite the others coming adrift in the damp) to
another thin wood that is about half of millimeter thick.

This top piece ( the third millimeter top veneer and the half millimeter
together ) i would like to cut into a rounded shape.

To avoid it splitting whilst I cut it to shape, ( I thought I would like to
use scissors); is there anything you can advise a novice to do that will
help with this?

Friends have suggested; more soaking in water, steaming in kettle steam, or
hot water. Thanks for any advice.