After years of woodworking, I have decided to try my hand at veneering. My interests lie in veneer for furniture tops and drawers; e.g., using burls, crotches, etc. Will probably buy a vacuum press as that seems to be the way to go.
My questions concern drawers. Most of what I have read recommends particle board, MDF or plywood as a substrate. I don’t like the idea of particle board or MDF because of the weight. That leaves plywood.
1. Is it acceptable to use a hardwood for the substrate or is movement too much of an issue?
2. How do you handle dovetails on the drawers if plywood is the substrate? Doesn’t sound too attractive.
3. I seem to have a knack for screwing up dovetails and usually have to make an extra drawer front piece. With that in mind, is it best to apply the veneer after cutting the dovetails so as not to waste valuable veneer or is that even possible?
As you can see from my questions, I don’t know much about veneering so any information would be appreciated.
Replies
Jim,
I have used solid wood, both soft and hard as a substrate with no problems at all. When a drawer gets past 6"-7" deep, then I like to choose quatersawn stock and veneer both sides. Also, for drawers over 5" deep, I veneer them after the drawer is glued up, so the dovetails can hold the face flat. The exception to all of the above is when working with birdseye maple. It has to be veneered on both sides using birdseye maple, regardless of the drawer depth, because it seems particularly prone to distorting the substrate. There may be other species that do this too, but I have only worked with Cherry, Mahogany, Birdseye Maple, Curly Maple, Burl Maple, Walnut, Satinwood, and Birch.
I'm in the minority, but I don't see a vacuum press as essential or even beneficial for most veneering; at least I have never felt hampered by the lack of one.
Rob Millard
http://www.americanfederalperiod.com
New to Veneering - Drawers
Rob..
Thanks for your advice. Reassuring to know I can safely use hardwoods for the substrate. Just visited your web site; very impressive. I can see I need to spend some time there. Your furniture is quite inspiring.
Do you have any suggestions concerning where and how to buy veneer? Because of where I live, I am restricted to buying online. Someone suggested Certainly Wood as a source. When buying veneer can you expect to have sapwood to work around or is veneer normally sold without sapwood?
Try Ebay
Jim,
I'm glad you liked the website.
Certainly wood, is certainly good (sorry about that). I get a lot of veneer from them. Constantine's is another source, that I use, especially for their black dyed veneer. My favorite source for small lots of veneer is Ebay. You can see exactly what you are getting, and the prices are often reasonable. Certainly Wood also lets you see what you are getting, but they show a representative piece, which depending are were it came from in the stack, can vary slightly from what you get.
As far as sapwood, yes veneer has sapwood, but I have not seen it be a significant percentage of the sheet. I think this is because only the best logs go to veneer mills.
Rob Millard
http://www.americanfederalperiod.com
jim,
1 Sure you can use hardwood for the substrate/drawer front. It's been done for hiundreds of years. While movement might be an issue theoretically, there are a couple ways this can be addressed. If the veneer's grain direction is run the same way as the drawer front's, then they will both move in more or less the same rate. Alternatively, you can apply a layer of less expensive veneer under the good stuff, with its grain at right angles to the drawer front. This makes the front sort of a lumber-core plywood, and more effectively restrains the movement of the front. Conventional wisdom says that this ought to be balanced with another pair of veneers on the back side of the drawer front. Practically speaking, the dovetailing of the front to the sides is pretty effective at restraining any tendency of the front to cup due to unbalanced veneering. Unless the front is very wide, over say 10", I don't bother with veneering the back side of a drawer front.
2 It is a challenge to dovetail plywood, unless you are using a router to cut the joints. Even then, blowout can be a problem, and the joint is not attractive, to my eyes anyway.
3 I can't think of a reason offhand not to veneer after sizing and dovetailing the fronts. It is a good idea to cut the veneer slightly oversize to allow for a little slippage during clamping. And if the grain of the veneer is carried across all the fronts, it is safer to do as much of the risky stuff before veneering, rather than risk spoiling a front and losing the match thereby.
Ray
New to Veneering - Drawers
Ray...
Thanks for that very thorough advice on using veneer on drawers. I think I would have sweaty palms if I had to cut dovetails on a piece I had just veneered with some expensive burl. Nice to know I can cut then veneer.
It won't help with your dovetail choice, but for larger carcase parts there is an alternative to mdf, ply, p-board. This probably goes by a number of names depending on the manufacturer, but the product I've used is Armor-Ply. This is plywood on the interior with thin layers (1/8") of mdf on the surface. The material is much lighter than solid mdf, holds screws better, is just as stable, but has the nice smooth surface of mdf. You might have to hunt out a local source of supply, perhaps having it special ordered.
New to Veneering - Drawers
Sapwood...
Thanks for the heads-up about Amor-Ply. Sounds like a good product. Will check with my supplier
Hi Jim,
About two years ago, I think I was where you are now - lots of woodworking experience, but just starting in veneer. It's been a blast! I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.
Rob Millard is very generous with his advise here and on his website and blog. He's been a help to me with veneering and with Federal Period Furniture in general. If you have not already done it, get over to his website and blog. He has videos and links to some new ones on youtube.
I got started with hammer veneering with hot hide glue and haved stuck with it. After a lot of practice, I have a few finished pieces under my belt now and don't have any ideas about moving to a vacuum press.
For practice, I glued a lot of veneer to a lot of drawer front sized pieces of plywood. When it came to the real thing,I used solid drawer fronts with hand cut dovetails. The drawers were glued up and fitted then the faces were veneered. My thinking is that if you are taking the step to apply figured veneer you're clearly making something more formal or "fine" if you will. The idea of MDF or plywood dovetails or something other than half blind dovetails would not be right.
For table tops with all surfaces covered, I will use plywood.
I found that a little veneer goes a long way when you're practicing drawer front blanks, so jump in!
Frank
New to Veneering - Drawers
Frank...
Hope to follow in your footsteps. Veneering just seems like the only logical way to add beautiful woods to furniture. Would be interested in your experience and advice on buying veneer. Thanks for your comments.
Jim,
I bought a few packs of veneer from Woodcraft to get started. Since then I've bought from Certainly Wood http://www.certainlywood.com/
Constantines http://www.constantines.com/ and from several folks who sell through eBay. I have heard good things about Berkshire Veneer, but have not bought from them.
I get hide glue from Tools For Working Wood http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/
Frank
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