# Banding experiments



## Joe Williams (Feb 15, 2018)

I love banding. Herringbone, Dart, Solid, I just cannot get enough of it. I make boxes and nice little things like spice cabinets because I have a small space so I have been experimenting with banding a lot lately. 

While it's not complicated it's kind of expensive and it can be quite challenging sometimes. For one you need it to be a perfect dimension when done so it fits into things. Another is that the materials are now extinct. Ebony at .5mm for example you cannot buy veneer anymore (not sure you ever could) so you must make paper thin sheets if you want that.

Anyway I bought some snakewood off ebay and played with that a little and I also grabbed some quartersawn sycamore which I have never had and made a couple different. Really nice woods.

One set each of the sycamore and snakewood is using .48mm thick Gabon Ebony and Holly. To contrast that I made packs with Dyed Anigre (Might have been poplar but pretty sure it was Anigre) and Holly at 1/32 each for contrast. Commercial veneers are so much cheaper and to get the gabon that thin and consistent for the .48 was really hard. It took me almost 10 hours to make the 7 layer banding because it was so paper thin.

I like them both but they are very different. The super thin looks really nice because it's unusual. May use that one in a Macassar box I am making.

Let me know what you think looks best, these are my experiment pieces but given the cost of the woods involved I won't waste them, I'll use them for something.

Reactions: Like 2 | EyeCandy! 2 | Way Cool 10


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## pinky (Feb 15, 2018)

I like the snakewood ones best.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Wildthings (Feb 15, 2018)

Heck I like them all! So are they thick? Can you slice off a length and still have the pattern all the way through or is it just one layer?

Reactions: Agree 1


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## barry richardson (Feb 15, 2018)

Real nice Joe, are those solid chunks of snake wood?


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## Joe Williams (Feb 15, 2018)

Wildthings said:


> Heck I like them all! So are they thick? Can you slice off a length and still have the pattern all the way through or is it just one layer?


They are sliced at 1mm thick or so and then sanded down to match the inlay channel so there should be around 11 or 12 strips per "loaf"

Reactions: Like 3


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## Joe Williams (Feb 15, 2018)

barry richardson said:


> Real nice Joe, are those solid chunks of snake wood?



Yep, one is 5/16 and the other is 3/8


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## Wildthings (Feb 15, 2018)

Joe Williams said:


> They are sliced at 1mm thick or so and then sanded down to match the inlay channel so there should be around 11 or 12 strips per "loaf"


OK I get it now. Each one of those are looking at the long grain face. For example 1st picture far right one is made up of 5 different flat pieces that are glued on top of each other like a sandwich to give you the design. The long grain is showing the design


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## DKMD (Feb 15, 2018)

Nice work! Hard to pick a favorite, but I like the one second from the right.

If you’re looking for a tool to help with sawing the veneers, a member of our local club bought one of these for making veneer for segmented turnings:
http://www.accu-slice.com/accu-slice-system.html

I haven’t seen it in action, but he brought in some examples that he cut... impressively smooth and consistent.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Joe Williams (Feb 15, 2018)

DKMD said:


> Nice work! Hard to pick a favorite, but I like the one second from the right.
> 
> If you’re looking for a tool to help with sawing the veneers, a member of our local club bought one of these for making veneer for segmented turnings:
> http://www.accu-slice.com/accu-slice-system.html
> ...


Wow thank you for the recommendation going to have a look.


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## Joe Williams (Feb 17, 2018)

Here are the slices for anyone curious how they look sliced. I am doing some finish testing on macassar veneer right now with Z-Poxy finishing resin and some of these will be in that maybe.

Reactions: EyeCandy! 2 | Way Cool 1


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