Veneering a Panel for a Custom Door

Last week, I shared how I created a beautiful patina on copper for a custom door project.  This week, I show you how I veneered the center panel of the door with copper and walnut.  This door was built for a Denver Metro furniture client.

Veneering the Center Panel: Copper, Walnut, and a Few Lessons Learned

I started by cutting the center core. This is the panel that’ll get the veneer laid over it, and I went with a 12-ply sheet for stability. With veneer work, the last thing you want is a substrate that’s moving around, expanding, contracting, and cupping.  So the multi-ply gives me a solid, predictable base to work on.

Resawing the Walnut Veneers

The board I wanted to use for the face had beautiful grain, but it was 16 inches wide, which was too wide for my band saw. So I cut it in half, resized each piece, and made sure to keep track of which slice came from where. When you’re trying to get a clean grain match, the order matters.

At the jointer, I got everything squared up, then just took my time at the band saw, keeping all the slices in sequence.

One thing worth mentioning: when you resaw, the blade is eating up a fair amount of material with each pass. That means your pieces will come out narrower than what you started with, and the grain isn’t going to line up perfectly just by butting them together. I cut my veneers a little wider than the substrate on purpose, so I’d have room to slide them around and dial in the best grain match before committing.

Once I had them lined up the way I wanted, I marked the underside of each piece where it met the plywood, squared them off at the table saw, and cut them all to the exact width of the substrate, all at the same stop setting, so every piece came out identical.

Taping and Gluing

With the pieces cut, I taped the seams together with veneer tape. The tape acts like a hinge and holds everything in alignment when you go to flip and place it, and it pulls the seams tight as you go.

I broke a cardinal rule here. I spread the glue directly on the veneer instead of on the substrate. The right way to do it is to put the substrate on sawhorses, spread glue on that, then flip it down onto your veneer. That way, you’re not letting the veneer soak up moisture from the glue while it’s just sitting there, which can cause it to cup fast. I was being lazy. My shop is small, I didn’t want to drag out the sawhorses, and I just went for it. It worked out fine, nothing cupped, but that’s luck more than skill. Don’t skip the sawhorses.

Getting the Copper Down

With the walnut veneered and sanded, I moved on to the copper. The patina came out really nice, a benefit to hiring a custom furniture maker.  I didn’t want to scratch it up after all that work, so I taped off the glue line carefully before applying the 3M neoprene contact adhesive. That stuff is rated down to -30°F, which matters up here in Colorado.

Contact adhesive is unforgiving. If it touches before you’re ready, you’re stuck; literally. So I used some spacers to hold the copper off the substrate while I got everything lined up, did a dry run first to make sure I had enough of them, then pulled the spacers out one by one, dropped them down, and went over it with a J-roller to get good contact.

Pre-finishing Before Assembly

The last thing I did was start the finish, but not the final coats. I applied a sealer coat only for now, and taped off the copper from the walnut. The reason is that the copper is getting a high-gloss finish, and the walnut will be satin, so they need to be sprayed separately.

I’m also pre-finishing the panel before it goes into the door frame. If there’s any movement after assembly, even a little.  I don’t want to end up with an unfinished sliver showing around the edge of the copper. Finishing it now eliminates that problem.

Next video, I build the actual door frame. That’s where everything comes together.

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