Veneering and laminated wood — technique and materials

Veneering is the art of laying a thin layer of noble or patterned wood (veneer) on top of a cheaper core so the piece has the appearance of solid, expensive wood. According to the regulation for the vocational education of machine woodworker, you must be able to independently choose, justify and carry out advanced veneering tasks (§ 4, no. 42) after first having learned the standard ones (§ 4, no. 16).

§From veneer board to furniture surface

Veneer is cut into thin, usually less than a millimetre thick sheets from a tree trunk. Because the sheets come from the same trunk, they can be arranged so the grain runs from sheet to sheet — this creates patterns such as book match where two sheets are turned like open book pages or quarter match where four sheets form a symmetrical pattern around a common centre point.

• 01Book matching — two veneer sheets are mirror-reflected as an open book
• 02Quarter match — four sheets are placed symmetrically around a common midpoint
• 03PLACEHOLDER_26

§Glue and glue application

The choice of adhesive depends on what the item should be able to withstand. For veneering, urea-formaldehyde adhesive or contact adhesive is typically used, while laminated construction wood is often glued with PVAc adhesive (white wood glue) or more moisture-resistant PU adhesive (polyurethane) if the item must withstand high humidity. The order specifically mentions laminating and clamping tools as well as correct equipment for adhesive application as an independent competence goal (§ 4, no. 2) — an uneven or too thin adhesive film gives poor adhesion, while too much adhesive can seep through the veneer and damage the surface.

§Pressing — cold, hot or under vacuum

The actual compression can happen cold over several hours in a flat press or hot in a veneer or vacuum press where vacuum presses the veneer tightly against the core even on curved shapes. Vacuum pressing is particularly used for curved and shape-refined pieces where an ordinary flat press cannot follow the shape.

§Quality control of the veneered workpiece

After pressing the part is checked for air pockets, edge trim overflow, and whether the pattern has come together correctly before it goes on to trimming, edge banding, and surface treatment. Errors here are expensive to fix because a defectively finished part usually must be scrapped rather than repaired.

§Why veneering is still relevant in industrial production

Although veneering sounds like an old-fashioned craftsmanship technique it is used on a large scale in modern industrial furniture and kitchen production — it allows you to use rare and expensive wood types in thin layers rather than as solid wood while the core can be a stable and cheaper board product.

“Veneer doesn't lie about where the wood comes from — but it's the glue and the press that determine whether the result lasts for twenty-five years.”