I am building a cherry bookcase with the top piece of the face frame 3″ wide by 44″ long. I want to glue down matching veneer(figured cherry) that has an inlay design. Grain will all go in the same direction, Original Titebond for glue. Any issues doing this over solid wood as the substrate? I have only used plywood for a substrate in all my other work so doing this over solid wood is a first. Thanks for your help.
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Replies
IMO not an issue on that narrow of a board, so long as its well dried.
I applied walnut veneer over 6" - 8" wide solid walnut drawer faces (of a lower quality than the veneer) about 35 years ago using contact cement (which is not usually recommended), and I've never had a problem.
Years ago we glued shop sawn 1/8' curly maple veneer onto 8' wide x 3/4' thick plain maple. the water in the Titebond caused some cupping that didn't go away completely when the moisture evened out. either test your process on scrap or use a non-water based glue like epoxy.
The reason the wood cupped is that you didn’t balance the panel by doing the same thing to both sides (the back side could have been a simple utility-grade veneer, often referred to as “backer” veneer). Even using non-water-bearing glue is absolutely no assurance of preventing cupping when making an unbalanced panel.
Veneering over a solid wood substrate as you are suggesting is absolutely no problem, other the “unbalanced” panel as I commented to jharveyb above. That said, in your application of veneering over a 3” face frame that is presumably already securely attached to the car case, you should have no problem with just veneering on one side (the risk of noticeable cupping is quite small). If the face frame piece has not been attached to the car case yet, then veneer both faces to keep it balanced.
Damn autocorrect changed carcase to car case!