I’m looking to add hammer veneering to my skill set. The first project will involve a box bottom with strips laid in a decorative pattern. I’m aware of using solid wood and plywood as substrates. I’m against MDF because of a personal bias.
1. Are there any other substrates used?
2. What are the pluses and minuses of plywood? solid wood?
Thanks in advance
Replies
In a nutshell, solid wood moves, plywood is stable.
MDF faced plywood (CombiCore is a name brand) is excellent. It has thin veneer plies with about 1/16” MDF outer faces. It is exceptionally flat and stable and wonderful for veneering.
@Ray2357 - no matter the substrate, solid wood, CombiCore, or plywood, make sure to laminate both sides or you will get unequal surface tension causing the surface to cup. Also make sure to use a cross grain pattern. Good luck.
Between MDF, plywood and solid wood or some combination of these, you cover pretty much every material a woodworker uses. All three are useful as veneer substrates. Here how I choose each substrate:
MDF: This is probably the best surface for veneer. Perfectly smooth and flat. Unfortunately, it has many issues. If I am making a flat top that is fully supported, I use MDF. My 3'x7' built in buffet is MDF and it looks great. I occasionally laminate MDF on solid wood or plywood to create a large smooth surface, but I rarely do this.
Plywood: I use the CombiCore for flat panels, but mostly I use baltic birch plywood. This is my most common substrate for veneer. It can be used structurally. It provides a smooth enough surface that it doesn't need additional prep work prior to gluing. Very little wood movement. You do need to cover the edges and it really isn't the best choice for machining edges or joinery. Overall, great stuff.
Solid wood: You really only use this as a substrate for some type of veneer design. Otherwise, you would just use solid wood without veneer. Solid wood can be machined to any thickness, you can add edge profiles, and you cut joinery. This has the most movement and requires the most prep works. I rarely veneer the back side of solid wood. Typical places I use solid wood are box tops with a design (so I can pick my thinkness) and drawer fronts (walnut burl on solid walnut so I can cut dovetails).
There is lots of good content on veneering on this site. Play around, make lots of test projects and learn this skill. I use veneer in almost all of my projects.
He's not using it anyway but my limited experience with MDF and hammer veneering it absorbs water too quickly.
All I ever use is either plywood or rarely quarter sawn lumber if the width is less than 6".
Re: solid wood, remember at one time there was no plywood. I've seen a lot of old Singer sewing machines they were all veneered in quarter sawn oak over solid wood panels made up of 2" wide strips that looked like poplar.
Thanks to all of you for the information, it's exactly what I needed. This is one of the things I love about FWW.
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