I have 4mm thick walnut veneer that's about 310mm wide. All I have is a steam gun - can it be bent according to my plan? Making a computer case. I can set up jigs and shit but I've never bent veneer, just want to be sure if there's some limits or some rules of thumb like "you can't ever bend over x degrees if your veneer is y mm thick" or stuff
How much are you bending it by? Are you trying to crease it or form a radius curve?
>>992836
I'm not sure what you mean - I'm not a native speaker, I don't understand what you're suggesting.. but maybe this diagram helps more?
what's the difference between creasing and radius curve?
>>992836
also this might help too
>>992835
You'd probably need to make yourself a steam bending box, which can be done fairly cheap with some lengths of conduit and a kettle element. (check youtube) and a jig with some dowels.
The top-right bend at 75deg is probably the one to give you the most problems but the rest will more likely be ok with walnut
About the only real tip is to make the veneer shaped before you do the routing into the main surface as its not likely to be 100% accurate and then you can use them as a template.
>>992844
Yeah you're not going to match that shape with veneer. Least not walnut. If there is some iron on alternative you might but otherwise you're on a one way trip to grain break City.
>>992915
You sure? Even If I steam like a motherfucker and have really solid jigs?
The corners are exaggerated in all pictures except the first one, I can take a reasonable amount of curvature.
>>992976
It'll just break. You'll see even when steamed it's generally only to follow a radius curve, not to match a crease or acute angle.
The best you're going to get I think is iron on, but you would of course need an adaptable backing to apply it to, such as wood.
![supersoft2-sample[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/9lJdwjX.jpg "supersoft2-sample[1].jpg")
>>992835
Look for a product called "veneer softener."
There is a limit to just how sharp a curve it'll take, but if you soften it up you can wrap it around a pencil. It may take a few practice tries to get it down, but a nice rounded corner like your first pic shouldn't be a problem at all. Try it out with some test cuts and scrap of your walnut and you'll figure out pretty quickly what kind of bend it can take, then adjust your radius from there.
You're not going to get a sharp corner like the second picture no matter how sloppy you get the wood. It'll just me more hassle than it's worth. If it must be sharp, cut the veneer then fill the seam.
4mm can hardly even be called veneer. This would work much better with thinner material. I would go as far as suggesting you make a base layer of sheet metal to the shape and then glueing thinner veneer to it, it would be much sturdier. 4mm is just rather thick for this application. You could cut and join the angles, but it would take quite some skill to do well, and be prone to cracking. Should look nice though of you pull it off.
>>992835
That's construction veneer so bending it will just snap it at those angles, just mitre/cut it to fit rather than bend it, it's 4mm For chrissakes more than enough thickness to join not rather than bend
Yes, 4mm is very thick, it will break ! It's better to glue it, and here the hard part is to achieve a proper clamping. After you cut the rights angles on each piece, you could use solid "counterform(s)" covered with waxpaper (so the glue won't stick to it). If you can glue everything at once, wrap it with rubberbands will make a very strong and good clamping.
If you really want to steam bend, it's better and easier to have good grain orientation (quartersawn, not too much figured,..). Walnut is a wood that can be completely soaked for a long time to be bent easily after. But before you'll have to reduce "veneer" thickness by at least 1,5 / 2mm ! Then you can make your heatgun blow into a steel or aluminium pipe to have a bending iron. But this will be WAY harder than to glue it..
I've been making skateboards and longboards for a while, what I recommend is getting the thinnest veneer you can, soaking it, and then using wetglue and a press to get the shape you want.
