Ski Builders Forum

I decided to try some wood veneers as a topsheet last week. I was out of mold release and tried using parchment paper and it crinkled a little on the top leaving the topsheet looking kinda bad. The base is perfect, but the veneer on top has a few grooves and the grooves have a whitish color to them. It almost looked like the veneer came from a piece of wood that was water damaged now.
I am thinking I will just press another veneer over this without parchment paper now that I have more mold release.
Can anyone think of why this wouldn't work?
Kinda bummed because everything else on the board is perfect.

the white stuff is likely cured epoxy that bubbled. I use parchment as well and had some minor wrinkling. I think I'm going to use spray adhesive to keep the parchment attached to the aluminum skin this time and I think that will solve the winkling problem.

I think the wrinkles happen when the parchment relaxes/slumps into the tip and tail curves so by adhering them to the skins I think this should keep it from happening.

I use mold release on the bare aluminum and it works great. You will still get some roughness but with a wood veneer you need to do lots of sanding and poly coating to get a nice final product.

I pre poly my veneer on one side, works great.
Paste wax works a a mold release if you don't want to buy the expensive stuff.

MM what type of paste wax are you using, something like a car wax?

car wax was a no go atleast not hgh grade carnuba turtle wax.
I use this.

I previously used parchment paper over the top sheet and frequently got bad wrinkles in the top sheet.

I did away with that and just use basic car wax on the aluminum and it works great.

I think putting on another veneer layer would be fine though.

I've been using a floor wax called Butchers as a mold release. Works great. So did the veneer actually wrinkle or is it just the epoxy that cured into a wrinkle? Give the top a good sanding, you can sand the epoxy wrinkles out and then coat with poly. If the veneer is actually wrinkled sand it down to bare wood, clean thoroughly and press on a new piece of veneer.

Yeah - like he said (above)

Applying the Poly in advance is a good option MM - if you want a glossy finish.

Spraying Polyu is a bit - cough cough, damaging to the health thou. Letting the veneer sit in epoxy and bleed through before pressing means you just need to find a good sealing agent. Depending on the veneer, you may need to put a thin coat on the face if there are a few patches left (do this before pressing). Gives you the option to use natural sealing agents or at least something less toxic.

Live long, die riding

There are no bubbles. You can tell where the paper folded or wrinkled because it left a long wrinkled depression in the veneer. In the wrinkle which is slightly deeper than the rest of the veneer it is a whitish color. I cant make out whether it pushed (using 50psi) so hard that the glass is showing through or if it is just thicker epoxy not allowing the color of the veneer to show though.
I filled the wrinkle with poly to build it up and sanded the surface perfectly flat. I will press a new topsheet on tomorrow and see how it works. I never did figure out how to post pictures here or I would show you what Im talking about so we can avoid this problem in the future.

Up-load to photobucket and copy the 'IMG code' into your post.

I pre poly my veneer on one side, works great.

Genius!