In woodworking, veneer refers to thin slices of wood, usually thinner than 3 mm (1/8 inch), that are typically glued onto core panels (typically, wood, particle board or medium-density fiberboard) to produce flat panels such as doors, tops and panels for cabinets, parquet floors and parts of furniture. They are also used in marquetry. Plywood consists of three or more layers of veneer, each glued with its grain at right angles to adjacent layers for strength. Veneer beading is a thin layer of decorative edging placed around objects, such as jewelry boxes. Veener is also a type of manufactured board.
Veneer is obtained either by "peeling" the trunk of a tree or by slicing large rectangular blocks of wood known as flitches. The appearance of the grain and figure in wood comes from slicing through the growth rings of a tree and depends upon the angle at which the wood is sliced. There are three main types of veneer-making equipment used commercially:
Each slicing processes gives a very distinctive type of grain, depending upon the tree species. In any of the veneer slicing methods, when the veneer is sliced, a distortion of the grain occurs. As it hits the wood, the knife blade creates a "loose" side where the cells have been opened up by the blade, and a "tight" side.
Traditionally, veneers were also sawn, but this is more wasteful of wood. Veneering is an ancient art, dating back to the ancient Egyptians who used veneers on their furniture and sarcophagi.
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The finest and rarest logs are sent to companies that produce veneer. The advantage to this practice is twofold. First, it provides the most financial gain to the owner of the log. Secondly, and of more importance to the woodworker, is this practice greatly expands the amount of usable wood. While a log used for solid lumber is cut into thick pieces, usually no less than 1 1/8 inches, veneers are cut as thin as 1/40 of an inch. Depending on the cutting process used by the veneer manufacture, very little wood is wasted by the saw blade thickness, known as the saw kerf. Therefore, the yield of a rare grain pattern or wood type is greatly increased, which in turn places less stress on the resource. Some manufacturers even use a very wide knife to basically "slice off" the thin veneer pieces. In this way, none of the wood is wasted. The slices of veneer are always kept in the order in which they are cut from the tree, and are known as flitches.
There are a few types of veneers available and each serves a purpose.
There are a number of "patterns" common to veneered work. This refers to the way the veneers are laid up.
Furniture made with wood veneer uses somewhat less wood than the same piece of furniture made with solid wood. Some projects built using wood veneer would not be possible to construct using solid lumber, due to expansion and contraction caused by fluctuation of temperature and humidity.
Wood veneers are typically sold by the square foot. With the ability to join veneers, even small pieces are usable, resulting in very little waste. Many sources sell small packets of veneers which are sequence matched, and are ideal for small projects. These make experimenting and practicing much more economical. It is also possible to buy plywood and other substrates with veneered faces for larger projects consisting of casework.
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