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Hello all, I have given up on bending Venetian cutaways on my bender. I’ve broken too many sides. I have resorted to building Flourentines. But I have read about doing laminated sides and want to try this approach for Venetians. Question about the laminate last thickness. I’ve got some IE Rosewood sides from LMI for laminates and they are .060. If I thickness my outer lams to .060, I end up with .120 inch sides. I’m not against this. Just wondering if this is the best way. Would/do you take either laminate thinner? Why do most of what I read have .060 as the thickness? Is it harder to work if they are thinner or some other factor that I don’t know about?
Thanks in advance

I have worked with older commercially sawn veneers of 0.040" and 0.023" successfully. The thinner (.023) veneers can be laminated by wetting out with epoxy without pre -bending with heat. The epoxy makes the veneer flexible enough to take a reasonable curve (but probably not as tight as a cutaway - I would pre-bend with heat) The thicker veneer should be pre-bent before glue up.
The principle disadvantage of working with thinner veneers, as I see it, is that sanding the sides to flatten them as some do, might cause "sand throughs" or thin spots that will allow the substrate to shine through. I avoid this by using sequence matched veneers and laminate them in the same order they were cut. Any minor sand throughs or thin spots will show the same grain and color as the outside sheet. I have gotten better over the years - my sides are flatter and less sanding is required, so sand throughs and thin spots are no longer much of a concern.
If you do decide to work with thin veneers I would suggest you buy sequence matched veneer and double up your face veneers to give an extra bit of thickness as a safety margin.

I have been doing laminate sides on almost all my stuff for quite a while. It certainly makes bending a tight Venetian a lot easier. You can bend both sides at the same time so they really fit together.

I usually make the outer lam around .060 and the inner around .050.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Timely posting, just got a vacuum pump for that very reason.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

.06/.06 for me.


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I use .060 and .022 or .060 and .022 and .022. If you dont like epoxy. I have found using titebond 1 mixed with corn starch. gives a thicker coat of glue

Do you laminate flat or in a curved mold? There seems to be 2 different methods described here. I think I may want to try this someday.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

For backs I laminate each half flat. For sides I laminate over a solid bending form - the same one used for bending solid wood with a blanket. I use West System epoxy and the 207 clear hardener. After the epoxy has cured the sides will hold their shape for years and can't be re-bent. The back plates are stiff but can be arched to take the typical radiuses we use. I use clamps rather than vacuum.