Wood Veneer Butt Decoration

[Stickfish]

Never tried contact cement - I sort of gravitated to double sided tape - when I saw how good the bond was between two pieces of UHMW with the tap plastic stuff I had to try it.

Try contact cement and show us how it turned out. I'm sure there are guys out there who know wood better than I do (Stan Grace comes to mind), I'm just hoping I stirred some imagination to make what I started even better by someone else's hand.

[Comedie]

I think that looks great. The burl has enough coarse pattern to it that a seam is always going to be found, unless you jump thru some extreme hoops. Least I think so.
On the tape, I'd probably have spiraled it on with a slight gap between the wraps. Easier than cutting a bunch of rings anyway.
The 3M double sided acrylic tapes can be had in some very thin measurements. Much thinner stuff than TAP carries. On normal UHMW, nothing wants to stick very well. But the pieces you tried could well have been treated (or not been virgin, or not really UHMW, or ????). I know the manufactured UHWM tapes I like, they get adhesion to the UHMW by modifying the surface (Hyde uses a corona treatment, I think they say). What you had could well have had such treatment done to it. I sure know that a freshly cut surface of UHMW really denies adherence to things.

[rico.29]

may be printed papper would be better, under a coat of epoxy nobody would see the difference and diameter would be thinner.
it's a scrapbooking technic very popular, there are Huge choice of paper/serviette:
Techniques pour débutant en décopatch - Fiche conseils loisirs cratifs - Creavea
i'm gonna try marble preinted paper.
i guess there are many papper/tissu that can be used, holo diamond, glitter...

[Comedie]

I don't know about 'nobody would see the difference'. I can certainly see the difference between printed laminate and real wood flooring. But beyond that, you know. There's always a higher value put on real things than imitations, even when the imitation can be better.

On the thickness part, you can get some pretty thin veneers. Like down to 1/100" I believe. Give it a recent background and it will look solid. Give it a designer color background, and you can tint the appearance too. Couple a thin veneer to a thin clear tape and you are talking perhaps 1/50" thickness. And of course some veneers already come coupled to the tape.

All the other papers, foils, and such can be used to do great things. But I think with something like wood, the real thing is always going to be real, and the imitation always an imitation.

[flamekeeper]

Pretty Neat idea... Nice job.

[blaminack]

I think that steaming the wood would considerably soften it to make it easy to wrap. Think of how thicker pieces are used to build acoustic guitars. Maybe even as simple as a wet paper towel wrapped around it and in the microwave... or even better a bamboo steamer.

[blaminack]

If this gets worked out and seems to hold up well then you should look into Analine Dye to tint the wood what ever color you like. This is how custom guitars get the wide variety of colors. Check ReRanch Guitar Refinishing for products and how tos on using the dyes. Applied correctly the veneers do better than mere stains I think.