If you have been eager to commence a veneering job using wood, but you are unsure of the initial steps, you have arrived at the right spot. In this article, we’ll provide an overview of the background of wood veneering, list some of its best advantages, and explain the common forms of veneer plus how to affix it to a surface.
A Brief History of Veneer
Methods of enhancing wood with veneer have been in existence for some time. African ebony veneers inlaid with ivory and other luxurious materials were often used by Pharaohs to adorn artifacts which they intended to bring into the afterlife from the earliest time periods – fragments of wood that had been inlaid were discovered in King Semerkhet’s tomb and are estimated to be about 5,000 years old. Two examples of intricate veneering techniques employed over two thousand years ago are a tabletop with fancy decorations that was given to Julius Caesar by Cleopatra and a citron table bought by Cicero the Roman orator with “veins arranged into swirling patterns in a manner reminiscent of small whirlpools”.
During the 1700s, a significant advancement in veneering was made due to the invention of more sophisticated woodworking tools. By the start of the 1700s, veneer was of growing importance as a style of making furniture changed the traditional frame and panel to cases and drawers. Furthermore, rather than having shaped panels or carvings, figured veneer surfaces were the preferred option. By the close of the 1700s, the practice of veneering had become incredibly refined in the neoclassical furniture designed by the likes of George Hepplewhite and Thomas Sheraton, with intricate inlaid detail. During the 19th century, veneering began to be seen as a negative approach to furniture production as some builders employed it merely as a means of covering inferior workmanship. By the mid-19th century, U.S. furniture manufacturers had developed into manufacturing businesses not requiring the skills of a cabinetmaker, and using veneer was more of a money-saving measure than a chic design method.
Adding to the difficulty, the ways of making the big quantities of veneer required for the quantity of furniture being created at that time were not as developed as they are now. The outcome was a number of poorly-built pieces of furniture with poor-quality wood coverings. In recent years, the use of wood veneering has increased substantially. Veneering has become highly advanced, making it a dependable option for making furniture and cabinets stand out with natural wood surfaces. Veneering provides an alternate way of utilizing unusual wood types that is not as tough on timber resources than making use of solid wood. Machines that precisely carve veneers and trustworthy glues in addition to durable man-made materials like MDF (medium-density fiberboard) make veneering an incredibly practical option compared to using solid wood in several woodworking projects.
The Origin of the Word Veneer
The term for furniture is derived from German, old French, and more recently, modern French, where it is used to express the act of providing or completing. It is speculated that when the term “veneer” was created, it related to the notion of a finish or an aesthetic appearance.
I drew on the Oxford English Dictionary for much of the information in the section below and included a long quotation from Walter Skeat’s Principles of English Etymology to demonstrate how a single word reached its current meaning. Particularly noteworthy is Skeat’s date of publication: 1887-1889, when pencils and goose quills were still widely-used.
1887-1891 Walter William Skeat, Principles of English Etymology Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887-1891.
As an illustration, I can refer to the term veneer, which has an unusual past. Phillips’ Dictionary, published in 1706, described veneering as a style of joinery and woodworking involving decorative inlays. This text is essentially taken from German, from words like Fournier, Furnier, veneer, inlay, and the verb Fournier, which mean furniture and the action of veneering or inlaying. The term “former” is the same word as the Dutch “voormer”, which was bolstered to “fournir” in French, and both the German and Dutch forms are derived from the French “fournir”, with its origin in Old French “former” and Provencal “former”. However, these Romance words were taken from Old High German, to provide advantages associated with the Old High German language, as well as from the adj./rum (G.fromm), which denotes excellence. An example of the changing of the letter “r” is seen in the letter “O”. The word “Sax.” is related to the Old Saxon term “forma” and to the Anglo Saxon term “forma”, being the initial one; these connections can be compared. English, former. So that the word was at first Old High German, and then passed into French; after which it again passed into German in an altered form, so that the connection of German Fournier with German fromm was much disguised; nor would it be easy to guess that the English veneer is allied to English former, and meant, at first, no more than simply to help forward or improve.
1869 George Dodd, Dictionary of manufactures, mining, machinery, and the industrial arts. New York, Virtue, and Yorston [1869] page 413
A thin, delicate layer of wood is put on the exterior of a larger piece of wood. The main purpose is generally to save money, by cutting back on expensive materials in places that aren’t immediately visible; it shares this goal with constructions like brick surfaces for stone buildings or marble surfaces for stone buildings. When veneers were cut with hand saws, they couldn’t be made very thin or uniform due to the lack of precision in their cutting. However, the invention of machine saws gave the veneer-cutter a whole new level of accuracy and control. It is usually impossible to hand-cut veneers to a size thinner than 1/8 of an inch, and this is only possible with small portions. Circular saws usually result in a fair amount of wood being wasted, but they do have their own benefits that may be weighed against the downsides. When they have a large diameter (such as 20 feet), they are put together from segmented pieces. The edge of the instrument is honed to a sharp precision and the teeth finely made; it is capable of cutting veneers of any thickness, down to as thin as 1/16 of an inch. A veneer mill is a type of saw mill that uses mechanical parts such as axles, pivots, pulleys, drags, racks, pinions, tooth wheels, clutches, adjusting screws, guide plates, and other components to press timber against the rotating saw blade. The astounding precision of the saw is demonstrated by the incredibly thin veneer which is neatly cut in a symmetrical way. Creating veneers can also be achieved by shaving, slicing, or planing. The scoreboard for hat-boxes, which is very thin, is actually a shaving that has been cut off of a plank using a planing machine. Veneers can be cut from a solid cylinder of wood by making a continuous shaving, beginning at the surface and bending in spirally towards the center; a peculiar knife edge is required for this, and the spiral shaving is afterward flattened out to a thin veneer. Ivory veneers were cut from a single elephant’s tusk, measuring 12 feet by 2-1/2 and 40 feet by 12 inches.
Types of Wood Veneer
Various kinds of wood veneer exist, ranging from the more expensive, ornately designed veneers made from Macassar ebony, mahogany, or walnut burl to the more budget-friendly ones utilized as a support for the back of a veneered board. In the past, wood veneer was typically around 1/4′ to 1/4′ in thickness, however nowadays it typically comes sliced to a thinner size between 1/90′ to 1/40′. Anything thicker than 1/16′ would be viewed as quite substantial. The majority of veneer is obtained by either spinning it in a lathe or cutting it out of a log which is lying horizontally. A log is placed on a lathe and spun for rotary cutting so that a veneer-cutting knife is used to peel off long sheets of veneer. Rotary cutting enables a lot of veneer to be cut swiftly, however, as the grain pattern may not be as attractive as flat cut veneer, and can vary substantially, making it hard to coordinate, it is not regularly used in the production of singular furniture items when the finished appearance of the article is of utmost importance.
An example of veneer is “plain sliced,” which is produced by drawing a flat piece of wood, known as a flitch, along its length or sideways past a stationary cutting blade. The end result is a stack of eight sheets (a flitch) that is wrapped up and ready for use. Since each flitch of veneer is just a portion of the original slice of wood, and no wood is wasted during the slicing, the grain pattern of the particular pieces tends to remain the same. The evenness of hue and texture of the sheets simplifies the job of uniting them, with often breathtaking outcomes. The blade is angled with the center of the log when conducting plain slicing, resulting in a concentric grain pattern in the center referred to as a “cathedral,” while the grain of the sheet becoming finer towards the sides.
Different cuts may be used instead of the default slice, such as rift slicing, half-round slicing, and quarter slicing. The technique of cutting wood is altered depending on the direction of the blade in relation to the grain of the material. For instance, cutting the slices of wood in quarter sections involves slicing the flat area of the cut timber perpendicular to the annual growth circles of the tree. The technique creates distinct designs, like the typical medullary ray specks of cut up oak and the lined effect in quarter-cut African “ribbon stripe” mahogany.
The veneers produced via these approaches can be arrayed or paired in various ways to attain the sought after look. “A ‘bookmatch’ is an arrangement that is often used for decorative and highly ornamental veneer, such as burl or the bend of a mahogany tree.” In book matching, one piece of veneer is divided into two parts and each part is flipped over to create an identical reflection between consecutive sheets of veneer.
Once they have been cut, veneers can be altered for various purposes. Veneering flat surfaces is most simply accomplished by plain-sliced veneer that does not have a paper or adhesive backing.
A veneer with a paper backing is an ideal material to use when dealing with curved surfaces because it is able to bend without the fear of it cracking.
Veneers of a specific style can be acquired with a sticky-back style that includes a pressure-sensitive adhesive on the reverse surface.
If you need a fast and straightforward solution, this self-adhesive veneer is an excellent option. A two-ply veneer is a type of veneer which consists of two sheets of veneer attached to each other with their respective grain directions perpendicular to one another, offering improved strength and rigidity.
Importance of the Veneer’s “Core” and Refining Methods of Gluing Veneers
In order for the veneer to not crack or bend, the foundation it is applied to must be strong and even. The surface must always be one complete piece and cannot be constructed with a frame and panel design, no matter if the shape is curved or flat. Prior to the mid-1700s, veneer was most commonly attached to an oak or pine backing. At that point in time, it was found that Honduras mahogany was suitable to be used as a base.
Advancement in veneering was aided by the implementation of more efficient adhesive around 1700 instead of previously used curd or cheese glue; however, tremendous cleverness was still necessary in sculpting the cauls and other binding components important for ensuring a secure connection between the two sides.
The intricacy of adhering veneer to end-grain necessitated the creation of state-of-the-art interlocking techniques such as lap and secret dovetails, which can either partly or completely enclose the joint.
Wood is employed in the shape of veneer for multiple purposes. It permits the best use of uncommon types of lumber that can only be found in tiny pieces, as well as of regular woods which, due to their growth, have desirable grain features such as curl, feather, wave, or fiddle back.
Trees that naturally have a tendency to warp or crack because of their irregular grain or lack any strength in their structure due to their uneven or burr development cannot be efficiently utilized in any other way. It allows even thin sections cut across the grain from the small trunks and branches of olive and laburnum to form the ‘oyster-shell’ designs which became common in Britain after the Restoration in 1662.
