This looks so cool. My order of veneer panels arrived today so I hope to try this sometime this week. hopfully i'll be able to do the hip flask next for my friends birthday.
What a great idea! I'm an amateur luthier and I'm always looking for things to do with my scrap bent sides. Question: Why did you thin the ends of each piece before hand? Is that just to make the lamination easier somehow?
Thanks dude! I thinned out the ends of the veneer to make wrapping easier. If you skip that step there will be a massive kink in the wraps which gets worse with every layer of wood.
Hey Zebrano, did your veneer come with a paper backing? I can't seem to find any that doesn't have a layer of something to help it glue to a surface for its intended purpose.
Very nice Dan. I don't know that I would have the dedication, or memory, to go back every day for a week to apply the gunstock oil...but the results are spectacular.
+ProspectorBill thanks man, yeah Tru Oil does take patience to work with but it's amazing stuff. I heard about it from a luthier and just thought that if it makes a nice finish on a guitar then it should work great on jewellery too!
Perhaps you might try to: first wrap your wooden form with a thin layer of teflon tape, or, varnish it first, then wax coat it, heavily, (using carnauba paste wax).
I guess with bangles they work fine, but when I used them for making rings, which are much smaller, they kept getting glued to the wood. Thank you for the info!
I know this comment is a year old but It can work with any wood, regardless of how hard. Like he said, the amount of time depends on the species. Most wood workers actually use steam to bend pieces up to several inches thick. I actually use the steam method to straighten pieces of wood I've harvested to turn into canes. The important thing about it though, is that the wood needs to be properly dry and seasoned before you go and bend it by boiling it or steaming it otherwise, it'll just return to it's original shape and "unbend" itself.
Hi! Great work man:) Can you suggest anything about sizing the bracelets like this? Or maybe a website with printable templates you are talking about? Thank you!
Hey man, sorry for the late reply on this! I'd recommend maybe investing in a bracelet mandrel or google search "Bangle sizes" and there are tons of images to help you :)
From personal experience, I usually prefer wood glue. If you're a careful woodworker you really can't go wrong using wood glue. I also like that it takes longer to cure because it gives me a little wiggle room in adjusting and readjusting so everything gets lined up nice and flush. However, I recently tried making a bangle out of a single long veneer strip (do NOT recommend doing this) and in that specific case I would absolutely recommend using a fast-curing glue because wrangling the unglued veneer strip is hard enough without also having to apply constant tension holding the glued section in place. For that project, using wood glue actually resulted in some parts of the bangle separating because I was juggling too many things at once (though I'm sure someone more skilled could pull it off, and the real lesson there is not to make a bangle out of a single continuous strip).
I found a template here for round bangles: stores.ebay.com/Sushila-Art/Find-your-Bangle-Size.html My bangle was basically an oval shape that was 65mm at it's widest and 55mm at it's thinnest with a 25mm section cut out at the back. With these details you should be able either draw out the oval with a compass and pencil or use a tool like photoshop to create the shape. Hope this helps!
