Some time ago I was in a hardware store looking for some wood for a stringer and my eyes get caught by a roll of wallpaper. What I first thought it was a roll of real 1mm wood veneer, was in fact a roll of wallpaper (10m x 0,5m) which was printed or painted giving a very good wood look.
I got close to the roll and took a little piece of it for testing it with resin. Test gave a good result: good bonding, no distortion of paint. But the paper is so ink or paint saturated (it’s like a 10m long photo) that I had to wet out both sides to bond it to the foam and to the top glass.
I wonder if we can use these wallpaper rolls when glassing boards, instead or in combination with cloth inlays, for cosmetics only, of course (real wood veneer will be the thing if we want some strength added, isn’t it?). Wood stiffness won’t be a problem on rails anymore, since paper is so flexi.
I’ll try to find a pic of theese rolls on the net.
A friend of mine have used the paperbacked veener (superthin!) and glassed it in on kiteboards. No problems so far.
As for the wallpaper, as long as it’s not covered with any plastic and is paper all the way through I guess it should work. I guess the paper effects strength/bond somewhat but if it’s well saturated it shouldn’t be any worse than the cured resin itself. Do a test!