Wooden Bench With Sapele Veneer Gets Curved Finish: Part 3

In this final part of a three part series on the curved shoe bench we handle finishing cuts, veneer work and completion.

Once the glue had dried overnight, we flush trimmed the side trim and, since we chose to use a PSA (pressure sensitive adhesive) backed veneer, we sealed all the surfaces with two coats of sanding sealer to ensure an adequate bond.

Applying the veneer was only moderately difficult. We had to pay close attention as we pressed the veneer down to make sure we did not pull off to much of the backing paper and accidentally stick part of the veneer down that we did not want to. Also, PSA backed veneer bonds by having the veneer “ground” into the substrate using a tool called a veneer hammer. Well, to get adequate pressure, you really put a lot of weight into it, which was quite difficult on the curves.

We trimmed the extra veneer, eased over the edges with some sandpaper, and turned our attention to the shoe racks.

A few steps prior we laid out and drilled all of the dowel holes for the rack pieces. Now we placed the rack pieces into position and continued our holes into those pieces. We inserted some glue and dowels to the holes, added some clamps, and walked away for the rest of the day.

The last difficult step was to veneer the outside of the bench, and it was not even that difficult, since we were only dealing with outside curves, not inside curves.

After the veneer was adhered and the excess was trimmed off, we gave the entire bench a light sanding to remove any pencil marks, rough edges, and water wipe marks, and sprayed on two coats of sanding sealer and one coat of pre-cat lacquer.

The final result is one of my favorite pieces we have ever built.