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Causes/Fixes for Veneer Lamination

jstroebel's picture

I am pretty much a novice to veneering wood--I have veneered a few small, flat panels using a vacuum press, but nothing terribly large or complicated.  Until now.  I am making a sleigh bed for my sister.  The headboard of the bed has two app. 3'x3' panels which feature a S-curve (concave at the bottom of the headboard and convex at the top).  The panels were formed with a 5/8" thick piece of bendable plywood (aka wacky wood) laminated to a 1/8" thick piece of birch bendable plywood.  They were glued up in a vacuum press over a form.  I then veneered bird's eye maple veneer over the formed panels.

I used Woodcraft Pro-Glue Veneer Dry Bond Resin (a urea formaldehyde based glue) in the glue up of the panels and to adhere the bird's eye veneer to the formed panel.   I carefully weighed the powder glue and water to get the right mixture of water to powdered glue and to make sure I was applying the right amount of glue for the surface area being glued up.  Both panels were left in the vacuum press for 6 hours.

Coming out of the press, everything looked great.  The seams were good and the veneer was adhered flat and smooth to the panel.  Now some three weeks after glueing up the panels, one panel has developed curling and bubble de-lamination at the convex, upper end of the panel and some bubble de-lamination in the middle of the panels.   The panels have not been wetted or exposed to any moisture and the curves in the panels are pretty gentle.  I have attached some photos to show the de-lamination I am experiencing

Does anyone have any explanation for why I have achieved such poor results?

How about potential fixes (short of throwing the panel away and starting over--which with no understanding of how I created the problem in the first place does not sound very enticing)?  I have a book on veneering which suggests squirting new glue under the veneer where the de-lamination is occurring at the edge of a panel and injecting CA glue with a hypodermic needle to try to re-bond the veneer where bubbles have formed in the interior of a panel.  Has anyone tried these approaches with success or failure?  Any other approaches to suggest.?  

Any thoughts and assistance from more experienced hands would be much appreciated.  Thanks.