I know spalted maple, to be used for a riser, needs to be stabilized, but what about veneers? Does the epoxy impregnate the veneers enough to effectively stabilize the wood?

I think so if they are thin and not too rotten....  :D

Red cedar is soft too, but works for veneers if thin enough for the epoxy to soak into them a bit.

Thanks Kenny, I was hoping that would be the case. I have a lot of maple with some streaking in it.

I'd keep em thin as you can, not much strength in it . New sander , you oughta be able to do like .0075 , eh?

Oh and when you glue up, put the glue on em and then with the glass also glued, flip the glass over on the lam. You won't break the glass by turning it.  

Nope, don't even ask....... lol

And I was kiddin about the .0075"

QuoteOriginally posted by kennym:
And I was kiddin about the .0075"

So maybe .0125"    

I was thinking .003 or .004

QuoteOriginally posted by skeaterbait:
I was thinking .003 or .004

Easy on those zeros skeater!!!

I was thinkin .015 or .020

.021 is as thin as I've ever gone and that was kinda nerve wracking.

You say with streaking, is that like brown streaks or the black fungi streaks?

Mike, I took some natural aboo down to .010 once to see if it would, you could almost read thru it....

It has black fungi streaks.

Now you know why I am not allowed to run the tape measure... yeah, .03 or .04 is what I meant.

LOL , that stuff is on its way to rotten. If you can get glue to saturate it, it will be good.

Hmmmm, wonder about treating it with some type of thinner clear drying glue and finish sanding it?  I don't know, the heat box would probably break the other glue down.

How about some minwax wood hardener?

I've made a few out of spalted maple that were 55 lbs. , I used .05 veneers and never had a problem .

could the epoxy not be thinned with  a bit of acetone- like the Massey finish- let it soak in- and the excess wiped off, and then normal epoxy be applied?
so kind of sizing it with watered down epoxy- like  one does with TB3 and skins etc

No need, just leave them thicker as said above 0.050.
Even though it isn't a huge amount stabalizing veneers is pretty pointless as it just adds weight to the limbs - not good!

Ive never had trouble using spalted maple in veneers unstabilized .  Cut your dust collection off when running them through your sander and use 60grit.  If you are going to use stabilized veneer glue it to your core wood then you can take the veneer down to 10 thou easily  boo backed veneer

good point Will, but why cut off the dust collection?