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Pressing your own plywood for soundboard??

Anybody ever attempt to make (press) their own "plywood" for soundboard material? I have been bringing home slipsheet material from work that is used to protect Baltic ply and other sheetstock originating from overseas. This mystery veneer has been pressed into a single sheet itself and about 1/16" and has some real character to it.. I've got around 200lb or so in solid construction block for my makeshift press. I figured that making it 3-ply might do the trick for a top.

I'd probably be better off just using a piece of hollow core door skin and laminating a single ply to that but I'm a glutton for punishment.

This may turn out really cool or I'm embarking on an epic fools errand. Wish me luck! ;)

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Permalink Reply by Lowatter on March 1, 2014 at 4:18am

If all it's gonna cast ya is some glue...I'd say "go for it".

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Permalink Reply by ron carlson on March 1, 2014 at 4:36am

I've got a bucket of Tightbond but need to pickup a new roller. That's about it I'd say. Let the fun begin!

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Permalink Reply by Bad Finger (Eric) on March 1, 2014 at 4:44am

I laminated a piece of raw veneer onto the bottom of a cigar box for a nice improvement. I used wood glue instead of contact cement since I didn't have any veneer relaxer and I didn't want to crack the sheet. I'd do this again in a heartbeat. If your slipsheet has enough integrity and character, maybe try this first?

You are still going to need a press for this. A roller will only squeeze out the extreme excess glue. You're going to need to hold it flat as the glue penetrates, expands and then dries. Also, don't cut any holes in the base substrate until after the veneer is fully cured/dried. Another one I learned the hard way.

This is raw redwood burl veneer on a Cohiba box.

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Permalink Reply by ron carlson on March 1, 2014 at 5:22am

I'm only using the roller for application and hoping I have enough weight to get a good press. I've got 200-250 lbs of solid CMU's to stack and other weight I can use also. It's going to be nowhere near the press PSI a manufacture would press at but hopefully it will be enough to get the job done.

I could use contact cement but I've had good luck using Tightbond for other cabinet veneering I have done around here. I usually roller out a thin surface on the two faces then allow it to tack up. For cabs, I just apply one to the other after tack up and then hit it with a flat iron to get it to cure. In this case, I can do the same but can't apply heat, only weight. Never used veneer relaxer. I'll have to check into that. I'll be flying blind as far as cure times are concerned. Hopefully a week or so will do it. That is unless of course, curiosity gets the best of me and I pull the weight early just to see how things are coming along ;)

I'm only going to be pressing a small section, probably around 12" x 15". Just enough to cut my top out of, not the full sheets.

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Permalink Reply by Bad Finger (Eric) on March 1, 2014 at 9:08am

I am very glad curiosity got the best of me on mine. It expanded a lot and I had already cut the hole for the coffee. The veneer idea came later in the build.

I had to reroll the glee and bust open the area around the cutout which was dry with no glue. Learning curve was fast and step...

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Permalink Reply by Bad Finger (Eric) on March 1, 2014 at 9:30am

Swype typing wasn't kind to me on that last post...

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Permalink Reply by ron carlson on March 1, 2014 at 2:00pm

Ha! I figured that it had to be something like that. Either that or you downed a few beers in-between posts ;)

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on March 4, 2014 at 9:03am

I have something that looks remarkably like this just lying around in my man cave. I wonder what I could do with it?

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Permalink Reply by Wade on March 1, 2014 at 4:14pm

1/16 might be a good thickness on its own if you add some bracing underneath.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on March 1, 2014 at 7:29pm

At the thickness of your material you'll be getting as much sound from the glue as would the wood. Be really cool to try an experiment using different glues. See if you could get different sounds. Like the difference between old horse hoof and Tightbond. Or wheat paste if it would hold together.

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Permalink Reply by Titch the Clown on March 2, 2014 at 9:21pm

Vacuum bagging gives the most even results. For small layups I have heard that even the domestic vacuum storage bags can give excellent results.

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Permalink Reply by David McQueen on March 3, 2014 at 2:43am

Hmm... Standard guitar only has 1/8" thickness. A CBG is not even a quarter the size. I would be tempted to try quarter inch sides and 1/16" thick braced top and bottom. Want real spruce bracing, take and old 2x4 and split it with a wedge. I am doing 1/8" solid wood now with no bracing and it works fine.