Hello: If I use a .25″ thick piece of stock over a base of .75″ stock do I need to consider that veneer and treat the other side of the .75″ stock with another .25″ piece? All the wood in question is white oak. I need a 1″ top for this cabinet and have a 6/4 board with nice grain on its face and would like to slice two .25″ “veneers” off one and glue to the other without all the troubles of using the thinner normal veneer type thickness’s.
Thanks, Duke
“… Buy the best and only cry once………
Replies
Duke,
1/16 inch is typically considered the thickest material that is considered a veneer, your 1/4" veneer is well over that outer bounds by a factor of 4.
With any veneer project you would be best served to veneer both sides of the substrait with the same thickness veneer, to balance the panel.
Best of luck
http://www.furnituresociety.org/fin/tubular.html
John Cederquist has been gluing 1/4" material to 1/2" baltic birch on one side. He's been doing this for many years and there's a room in the Metropolitan museum from the 14th century done in Trompe L'oeil style with 1/4" veneers or intarsia as thicker stuff is typically called. I don't think the 1/16" rule is true.
Duke--
Wood about 1/8 in. thick is fine; 5/32 in. is pushing it. At 1/8 in. thick, the adhesive property of the glue (white; yellow; hide; plastic resin-- all will work fine) will overcome the wood's tendency to shrink and swell. Anything over that, and the wood will act as solid wood, pulling on the adhesive and causing the veneer to either develop splits, pull itself off the substrate, or warp the panel—or a combination of all three.
To get an idea of the possibilities of sawn veneer, check out some of the work of teachers and students at the College of the Redwoods in Fort Bragg, CA (where cabinetmaker and author James Krenov used to teach). They routinely saw 1/8-in. veneers from planks on the bandsaw, a process called resawing, and glue them to a suitable substrate, such as MDF (medium-density fiberboard).
Fine Woodworking has published some excellent articles over the years documenting how to saw 1/8-in. veneers on the bandsaw, and how to correctly glue them to a core. Gary Rogowski has a video right here on Fine Woodworking.com showing how to set up and use the bandsaw for resawing. There are several books on the subject, too, such as Lonnie Bird's excellent tomb, The Bandsaw Book.
Many woodworkers use a 1/2-in.-wide—or wider—bandsaw blade for resawing, but when my big 1-in. resaw blade is dull or I'm too lazy and don't want to change blades, I typically use a 1/4-in. blade with very good results, using hook-style teeth with about 3 tpi (teeth per inch). In a nutshell, the resawing process involves jointing one face of the board, resawing a piece of veneer by registering that face against a fence, then re-jointing the sawn face of the board to repeat the process for another piece, and so on. The jointed surface of the veneer can be glued face-down to the substrate, and the sawn surface cleaned up after glue-up. Or you can smooth the sawn surface before glue-up by sending the veneer through the thickness planer.
Make sure you balance the panel by gluing the same thickness veneer on the opposite face, using a wood that has similar expansion rates as the show veneer. This is very important for preventing warp. A two-sided white oak panel would be A-OK.
MDF is the substrate of choice because of its stability. If you use plywood, choose a high-quality sheet that's as flat as you can find, and orient the face veneers on the plywood so they run perpendicular to your show veneers to balance the construction. I recommend that you do not use particleboard.
In my opinion, 1/8 in. veneer is superior to 1/16 in. or thinner veneer for heirloom work. The great thing about 1/8-in.-thick sawn veneer, as opposed to the industry standard of 1/28-in. (or thinner) knifed veneer, is that you can work the face and the edges, or corners, as you would solid wood, planing and scraping the face and rounding or chamfering corners to add detail. The result is a more durable face, a longer-wearing edge, and the feel of solid wood. Bonus: You can aggressively sand 1/8-in. veneer without fear of sanding through to the core, a bugaboo for many first-timers.
Good luck on your project!
--Andy Rae
Andy/All: Thanks for the help, especially Andy for the giant reply. I guess the answer is any veneering means the other side has to be treated the same. I was hoping that by using thick material over solid wood I could get away with veneering only one side, especially with wood such as white oak which seams so tough. I'll post pictures when I'm done.
Duke"... Buy the best and only cry once.........
Andy,
My experience is that even 1/8" thick veneers is really "pushing it." Especially when PVA glues are used. Hot hide glue may actually keep a veneer as thich as 1/8 from moving. But I've seen a lot of "thick" veneers fail.
I think that when veneers are sawn to 1/8" they, thankfully end up being thinner as the result of subsequent planing and finishing. It may seem like a small distinction, but geting the thickness down to 3/32, or less, makes a diference.
Rich
I agree the thicker you go with a "veneer" the mokre strength it is going to have to move. That is the beauty of commercial veneers. They are so thin, that there is virtually no movement. I mean of course there is movement, because all wood moves, but it lacks the strength to.I resaw alot of my own veneers and have found that about 1-1.2 millimeters thick is perfect. Where commerial veneers are .6 of a millimeter thick. So you can double the thickness of commercial veneers. But thicker than that and you will have movement problems.Kaleo
http://www.kalafinefurniture.blogspot.com
dukeone
There may be some misconception here regarding your project. The advice you have been given is for glueing veneer to a substrate of either veneer core plywood or mdf. If you are using solid white oak for your substrate, and simply glueing solid white oak to it, for aesthetic purposes, then you do not need to veneer both sides. The movement properties of both pieces are the same, and they will move together, not causing issues for the panel as a whole.
Perhaps you should re-clarify your intentions, to make sure we're giving you the proper advice.
Jeff
Jeff,
I disagree. Gluing 2 pieces of wood together as has been proposed creates an imbalanced structure that will warp with changes in temperature and humidity. In fact, the construction makes a perfect device to detect changes in ambient. One end can be anchored and the other used as a moving vane along a graduated scale.
The movement will happen even with the glue-up made of the same type of wood because the thichnesses are different and due to other uneven stresses in the 2 pieces.
A "balanced construction" (an uneven number of plys) is always necessary to mainatin stability.
Rich
"A "balanced construction" (an uneven number of plys) is always necessary to maintain stability."
That would apply to veneers glued up to make plywood. This is where you have a crossgrain condition. Gluing solids is different. It's pretty common in the industry to glue up thinner materials to make thicker stock. Thicker stock is typically a premium and if it's stained or painted you can get away with it visually. I've seen the technique used over and over the past 30 or so years I've been in the industry.
Edited 1/17/2007 2:08 pm ET by RickL
Agreed. In gluing up from "thick" stock, such as a glulam, warping is probably not the problem to worry about. The forces caused by movement of individual pieces in the structure are not going to cause (visible) warping because the overall strentgh of the assembly can resist that.
But analgous problems still exist such as the "delamination" caused by failed glue lines, voids, wood shear failures, etc. I don't know if Glulams have an "odd number of plys," but they have the same stresses occuring as "plywood" formed by thin plys.
Rich
Rich
I also disagree (ain't this fun!) For years, my cheater way of making bookmatched drawer fronts on chests, etc.... has been to hand cut through dovetails in 3/4" face stock to drawer stock. I take a nice, thick piece of highly figured stock (whatever, crotch, burl, etc....) and resaw 1/4" bookmatched slices, and face glue them to the same species drawerfront (walnut crotch to walnut, curly maple to maple, etc....). It's a lot faster for me this way than halfblinds (which I personally suck at, not enough practice), and it looks just like a halfblind when I'm done. I've never had a problem doing it this way.
Also, in my bedroom, I have a 100+ year old antique chest of drawers (my great, great grandfather built it!) of mahogany built the exact same way. Tip top shape on the drawer fronts, with nary an issue.
Who knows, maybe we're all right.
Jeff
OK Jeff,
I'll have to report you to the dovetail joint police.
Yeah, I have to admit I've seen a lot of "unbalanced" drawer fronts made that way that haven't warped.
Rich
Gee Guys, now I'm really confused. I need to build a cabinet top out of white oak. I have the wood on hand but the best looking grain is not where I can use it as is so I want to take the board with the good looking grain, take a couple of slices (thickness?) and glue them to the ¾" stock to make a 1" more or less top 14" wide. I was going to glue up a couple of the 7" wide boards first to get the 14" width and then veneer or laminate these with the pretty looking slices. All White Oak, all grain going in the same direction. I was going to go thick on the "face" slices because I've never done regular veneering and believe (rightly or wrongly) the thicker slices would be easier to work with. Earlier on I build a box for my straight edge by gluing a ¼" or so slice of Mahogany to Douglas fur for the top of the box. It has been OK for about 3 years. This is more important as it is a gift, I'd like it to stay together.
Duke"... Buy the best and only cry once.........
What you are planning to do will be fine.
duke,
As long as the grain of both the 1/4" and 3/4" are not crosswise to one another, you will be okay, as far as movement is concerned. If you can align the growth rings so that they are more or less continuous across the joint, so much the better. It will be a challenge to get enough clamping pressure across that much glue area, though. I suggest that you back up the 1/4" lamination with a "caul" of something like 3/4" plywood, and then clamp with crowned battens across the assembly every 10-12" of its length.
Good luck,
Ray
Duke--Sorry about the confusion. I thought you were asking about veneering, but in truth you want to laminate wood, which has is a different set of parameters.Your approach will work, but it's still going to be an unbalanced construction. If you were to laminate two boards of even thickness (in this case, two 1/2-in.-thick panels), then it would be balanced. But to have a 3/4 in. board glued to a 1/4 in. board offsets the glueline and risks having the thicker board pull or push at the thinner one, thus imbalancing the construction. The lamination won't come unglued (famous last words!), but it will most likely have a tendency to warp.My advice is to resaw both front and back pieces from the same wood as the center laminate, and about 1/8 in. thick (so they total 1/4 in.) and glue them to the front and back of your 3/4 in. panel so you end up with your desired 1-in.-thick top. You can use your best wood for the show face. As has been mentioned, be sure to orient the grain in the same direction, and try your best to align similar growth ring patterns.One alternative: You don't mention how long the top is, but if it's going to be well-secured to the case (screws; buttons; clips; etc.) and will have support via one or more cleats that span the interior case opening, then you could probably get away with an imbalanced lamination, since the case will likely hold the panel flat. Still, be sure to allow for wood movement when attaching the top since it is still a solid panel, even though it's laminated.If the top is 'floating' on the case, with minimal means by which to secure it, then I'd go with a balanced lamination to keep things flat over time.--Andy Rae
Sir: Thanks once again for great advice from a pro. I originally was going to just use solid wood and may go back to that but if I do or not I've been saving "best" advice from Knots. The top is 40" wide x 14" deep and will be solidly attached to the case, movement considered. The plan is not beyond the point where it can be adjusted. A spine or cleat could be added to the underside of the top to insure flatness. I think I'll review my stock that is put aside for this project and rethink what is going where. I may have enough "show face" wood to just go solid wood for the top, another factor is that White Oak is not so expensive to make "veneering" necessary. KDM"... Buy the best and only cry once.........
Oops! Misread your question. You are not really veneering, more like laminating. I don't see any issue as long as the wood is of the same cut. For instance quarter sawn moves in a different direction than plainsawn. I think when you used the term veneering it threw everyone off.
Rick,
What is the difference between veneering and laminating?
Rich
One version of laminating is where you stack solids together. Laminated beams for instance. Laminated curves such as rockers, curved aprons which could easily be laminated from veneers. Our timber framing department does glulam timber framing on occasion and uses such traditional mortise and tenon as well or just about every kind of mechanical faster such as brackets and timber rivets or simple bolts. Laminating would cover putting formica down as well.
http://www.standardstructures.com/products/ljc/glb.html
Rick,
I meant to imply by my question (sneaky) that there is no difference in this situation. "Veneering" is the process of laminating a thin slice of wood, called a "veneer," onto a substrate. Laminating a thicker piece of wood onto a substrate only compounds the problems. So saying that he won't have the problems caused by veneering because he is laminating doesn't make sense to me.
Rich
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