30 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



June 10, 1918 



and he wants to do the same. He picks up a lot of 

 good ideas by his visits, but sometimes he forgits that 

 the place he is visiting is making a cheaper line of goods 

 and dont have to be so particular. 



Now if you have good sawed cross banding you 

 might get away with high class work and lay the crossing 

 and faces at the same time. And you can do it some 

 times with rotary cut stuff. But lots of rotary cut stuff, 

 specially poplar, will show depresions where some of 

 the wood was tore away when it was cut. It might be 

 on account of dull knife or something else, but any way 

 the depresions are there, and the surface is uneven. 

 Now you think you can make a thin veneer lay smooth 

 on that uneven surface of crossing becaws you put it in 

 the press and it comes out smooth. You think the places 

 where the wood is tore up will fill with glue and make 

 the whole surface perfectly even and keep even. Well 

 it wont, and here is the why not Jim. 



The places where the wood is tore up will fill up with 

 glue, and while the stuff is in the press or retainers there 

 is enough moisture in the glue to almost swell them even 

 with the higher places. The stock is taken from the 

 presure and piled away to dry, but it is not left long 

 enough to shrink these places back where they was. 

 Then the stock is took down and sanded and made level 

 and so reaches the finishing room. But shrinking has 

 been going on all the time, even if the stuff looks all 

 right, and by the time it is filled and given a coat or two 

 of varnish and let get dry enough to rub it has shrunk 

 back near where it was when the crossing was laid, and 

 drawed the veneer with it and left the whole top uneven. 



All the tops wont be uneven becaws some of the cross- 

 ing had no depressions, but you have to watch out be- 

 caws rotary cut stock is most apt to have uneven places. 

 The reason you dont get the uneven places in the finish- 

 ing room when you make two operations of laying the 

 veneers is becaws after the crossing is laid the stuff is let 



dry before it is sanded and sent back to you to put on 

 the faces. Then you have a smooth surface to lay the 

 faces on. Let me say that if the glue wasnt strong enough 

 to pull the face down when you try to do the work with 

 one operation you wood have blisters instead of uneven 

 surface when the stuff got to the finishers. 



Then theres another thing that can make the uneven 

 places in the finishing room. Of course they are there 

 before they get to the finishing room, but it takes the 

 finish to bring them out. That other thing is having core 

 stock used too quick after it is made. If that is the 

 reason for the uneven places you will generally see the 

 depression running way across the top right where the 

 joints are in the core. I dont suppose you did rush things 

 too much there with the core stock becaws Tom Briggs 

 and 1 had a run in once and got that thing prity well 

 settled. But heres what could happen. Some of the 

 lumber could come from the dry kilns and be in good 

 dry shape. It could be cut to length, run through the 

 jointer, and the cores be jointed in a few hours. Then 

 they might be sent to the surfacer and planed to thick- 

 ness and sent to you. 



This is the point, Jim. When the glue is put on the 

 edges of the lumber so that a joint is made the 'water in 

 the glue is mostly absorbed by the wood. So the wood 

 swells at the joint. If the stuff is not given enough time 

 to dry before it is planed to thickness why it is going to 

 dry after. And when it dries it is going to shrink and 

 leave a depression right across the whole piece. Then 

 some one later cusses the glue or the varnish when the 

 whole trouble comes from cussed carelessness or too much 

 speed. 



I hope to hear that you come out all right in this. Best 

 regards to you. Hope the kids is well. Min can go fly 

 a kite. 



Your friend. 



Hen Flasch. 



WHO'S TO ©LAKE 9 



