How to make veneer.

Veneer (wood veneer) is a thin sheet of wood. It is much used to layer the m.d.f., particle board to produce wood looked surface. The veneer industry is big scale in the woodworking industry. The wood veneers from any type of wood are available in the market to supply the woodworking industry. If you need a wood veneer then you can find supplier and order according to your need. But do you know how wood veneer is made? In this article we want to share about the process to make veneer.
Veneer is made from the wood, so the manufacture of veneer is started by cutting the tree. All types of tree can be used to make wood veneer, but usually the wood with nice looked are used. The nice exotic and expensive wood such as: ebony, rosewood, pavero, zebrano, etc. are used to make veneered panel with special wood looked. While the common wood such as: oak, pine, cherry, maples are also much used to make veneer. If the exotic woods are used to make special inlay in the wood looked panel, the common wood veneer are used to make the better wood looked panels. The wood veneer with high grade can be obtained with cheaper than the wood plank panels.

The trees that are used to make veneer should be long enough, has a straight trunk and quite big in the diameter. The timber for veneer usually is better quality than the trees used to make the wood panel. The timber log usually is hard and brittle; it should be soaked or boiled first before being sliced. Soaking the wood will make the wood to be soft, elastic and reduce the problem in the slicing process. The tough and brittle wood may need to be boiled to get soften.

The wood stem is peeled by a rotary knife to clean off the skin and sap wood to make the long wood trunk with same size diameter from one end to the end. This log then is going to be sliced to form veneer. There are various techniques of slicing:  rotary slicing, flat cut slicing, half cut slicing, quarter cut slicing and rift cut slicing . Each of cutting technique will give different types of veneer and give the difference appearance in the term of grain pattern. The veneer slicing can be viewed below.

 

rotary slicing

 

half round slicing

 

quarter cut slicing

 

rift cut slicing

 flat cut slicing

The thin sheets of wood are still wet and mixed in the quality, then are need to be selected and dried in a kiln dry. Veneer is thin sheet; therefore he can dry quite fast. It needs few days to let the veneer dry. The veneer is usually marketed with the moisture content about 10 %.

The next process is grading and separating the veneers according to its quality. There are several grade of veneer according to its quality. By length, the veneer is grouped into three: the architectural grade, furniture grade and flooring grade. Architectural grade, this is the longest veneer, up to 2.2 m - 3.4 meter length. It is used to layer the specific forms of the building or home to make special architectural model. The furniture grade is the veneer for the furniture industry. Its size is according to make panels for furniture such as: side panels, top panels for cabinet or table. Some special furniture model that needs the longer veneer will need the architectural grade veneer. The flooring grade is the shortest veneer with 1 meter length. It used to make engineered flooring parquet, which is usually need the short panel.

The veneer is also graded according to its defect as the wood panel. Veneer with a grade is the best quality; it is the veneer with clean surface free from the eye, hole, crack and other defects.  The B grade is the veneer with some defect or knot, if more defects are existed then the veneer is grouped in the C or D grade.

The architectural A grade veneer is the most expensive, it means the veneer has clean and good surface for 3 meter length. It is the sheet that first explored and separated from the bulk of the sliced wood. The good performance sheet with some defect can be cut to go to the furniture grade or flooring grade. The low performance veneer can also go to the b grade or c grade. The A or B grade are used to make the face panel, while the C or D grade can be used to layer the back panel or to be used as the banded core. 
 

Veneer storage.
 
As product from wood, the veneer is hygroscopic material that is susceptible to the changes of the air humidity. The changes in the environmental humidity will caused to the shrinkage or swelling that could damage the veneer. Therefore, the veneer should be stored in a conditioning room which has a stable humidity. In the room the veneer sheet with same quality, sizes and type are bundled and stored in the same place. .