[Closed] Working with veneer /refinishing

vinyl wrap or paint them. but veneering is quite easy unless its the wood you don't like

By tatty do you mean discoloured, or edges frayed and lifting?

If the former, veneer can take a certain amount of careful sanding, then a quick refinish (oil is easiest, lacquer if you know how) and it should be miles better. You can mix a stain with the finish to get a colour you like.

I sanded down some veneered MDF recently and when I wasn't concentrating managed to expose a bit of the MDF. Veneers are usually surprisingly thin but apart from that incident, which was a place where it doesn't matter, by using a random orbital sander and 180 grit I got all the old finish (Osmo polyx) off and was able to get a very good result.

Thanks all, they are not too tatty, just a few superficial dinks on the corners from general life. I'm pretty sure the dinks are only on the veneer rather than the mdf wood underneath.

The main issue is the colour of the veneer is like this

But I want to achieve a colour more like this:

They are small enough that I could hand sand the veneer very gently (I have a set of super fine papers and wire wools from other projects) but I'm not sure how possible it would be to go to a more grey /white colour on the grain of the veneer

vinyl wrap or paint them. but veneering is quite easy unless its the wood you don’t like

Thanks they are options but I'd rather preserve the wood grain effect and lighten the colour of you get me.

I suppose I could go all out and re veneer them in the colour of my choice.. But I'm not sure how good of a job I could do with that.

These are the culprits

For the sake of £60 I could just buy something like this
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224860772089?hash=item345abf16f9:g:n78AAOSwfvxiHOkF

I think they are basically the same speakers But I'd rather work with what I've got.

Veneer really need to be pressed on, you can use contact adhesive, but its not ideal as its too thick.

One sure fire method is pva and an iron.

First coat the entire speaker in pva glue and allow to dry.

Place the veneer sheet(cut roughly to size, with a bit over to the first side, then using a warm(NOT HOT) iron, and with a piece of brown paper between the iron and the sheet(or some other piece of unprinted paper) iron the sheet.

The warm iron heats the glue and the veneer sticks to it. Make sure there are no bubbles, so iron firmly and go from the middle out, or left to right, much like laying on sticky wrap.

Once its cooled use a new scalpel blade with the newly veneered sheet size flat on to a piece of mdf and cut around the edges. You'll need to be quite firm, and maybe go over the cuts a couple of times to make sure al the fibers are severed.

Then the next side, etc etc

The front might be more difficult, due to the holes, or you could leave it.

A tin of spray lacquer over the top will give a good finish.

I'll see if i can post a pic of some ive done using this technique(you know what this place is like for posting images sigh.) which was madrona burr, on a convex surface. It was the only way to veneer it as clamping was nigh on impossible.

Ahh OK thanks, interesting.
The holes won't be a big problem as the tweeter and woofer have big surrounds so I could hide a rough veneer hole under the speaker drivers themselves if you know what I mean.

On these speakers i can also pull the whole front panel off to make it easier to work on as the front piece is fitted into the the black part of the box

Here you are. Peel and Stick American black walnut from the Wood Veneer Hub

Peel and stick is that new?
I'm getting some to try just need a project to use it on
Edit* I've aways done it with pva and a press or proper spray on contact adhesive that is thin spider web thin.