To make a veneer the timber is sliced to around 2 – 3mm and glued to panels to make products such as furniture, doors or flooring.
The process of making a veneer is either by slicing large blocks of wood or a process called peeling. The appearance of the veneer depends upon the angle which the blocks are cut for wood grain and figuring requirements.
Many product variations can be achieved when using veneers. For basic products which do not have high emphasis on style and design a basic machining process is used for manufacture. For more complex furniture products a verity of high tech. machines are used to achieve the various effects in appearance. Veneers can even be made to look old or distressed.
Veneers can provide benefits in lowering the cost of some furniture making (i.e. for producing large panels at reasonable cost and making plywood,MDF and chipboard look like hardwood ).Conversely high quality veneers can be used in high end fine furniture/cabinet making.
Veneers can be used for a variety of parts in furniture manufacture and are popular on the side of wardrobes or cabinets or for full items of furniture including table tops and legs etc. As a customer you may not be a wood expert so here are a few tips that you could find useful when selecting new furniture and how to know if it is solid or veneered:-
Ask if it is completely solid, part solid/part veneered or fully veneered.
Have a good look at the item of furniture to see any signs of a veneer (you may see the thin layer of veneer around the edges of tops, panels, doors, drawers etc.)
Have a look under the item, is the wood the same as the top?
Look inside the drawers to see if the wood the same as the outside?
Try the weight of the item, solid oak products are extremely heavy (but also bear in mind that some veneered products may be heavy if, for example, a large amount of MDF is incorporated into the item.
Does it look and feel solid and accurately manufactured to a high standard?
If you still don’t feel happy type it into a search engine if the product if it has a brand name.
Remember an expensive item of furniture may not mean it is 100% solid oak and the best quality.