In the Charles Dickens’ novel Our Mutual Friend, we are introduced to the Veneerings, Hamilton and Anastasia:
“Superficially valuable or pleasing appearance.”
Synonyms listed for veneer include: façade, front, show, mask, guise.
The part I article deals with the reasons which Adam feels justify the use of veneer, while part II (found in the following issue, #186) deals with the ‘how’ of veneering. I suggest readers who have not had a chance to read the part I article do so by clicking the provided link before continuing on with my commentary. You see, while I respect the author’s opinions, I have a diametrically-opposed view on veneer, and I would like to take the opportunity here, for whatever it is worth, to serve up a few counterpoints to the opinions brought forth in the above-cited articles.
“…technology has improved. Core materials have improved tremendously, including the introduction of MDF. Space-age glues and vacuum technology have simplified the pressing process“.
He’s absolutely right, though I’m not so sure that plywood, a common substrate upon which veneer is glued, has improved. While plywood is indeed a wonder material in many respects, with some outstanding qualities (I use it to make storage boxes for my portable power tools), today’s plywoods are getting cheaper and lower in quality than they used to be, with fewer laminae, from what I have observed. ‘Good’ plywood, when you can obtain it, is certainly not cheap. And MDF , essentially ground up sawdust bound together in a sheet with adhesives, is a very flat and uniform material – ideal, I would say, for making woodworking jigs. But not furniture. It has poor strength and if is gets damp, a disaster unfolds.
Adams notes that ‘correctly balanced’ veneered plywood panels is “far stronger than solid wood of the same thickness.” This is true, but only in a limited sense, and depends upon how one defines strength. Solid wood is anisotropic, having different degrees of strength relative to the direction of load in respect to the run of the grain.
In a piece of plywood, each laminae has the grain running crosswise to the layer above and below it. In order to keep the plywood stable, there are typically an uneven number of layer of layers, so that the outermost layers both have grain running the same direction. In short, a little less than half of the layers in a sheet of ply are running crosswise to the layer one sees on the faces. This means that plywood is stiffer in resistance to bending in one direction than another. And when compared to a piece of solid wood of the same species (typically, that is, a softwood) as found in the plywood sheet, one can see that all of the grain in the stick of wood will be running the same direction. If one measures strength then by resistance to bending, a rather important matter in most furniture construction, then solid wood is a better and stronger choice. In short, plywood is not often a good choice to resist bending because the plies with cross grain contribute almost nothing to resist the bending load that a shelf, say, must withstand. Plywood bookshelves are ubiquitous these days, and over time they tend to sag – possibly this is due to creep in the adhesive. Certainly, plywood is not an ideal choice for that application, but it is cheap.
Plywood is very strong in other respects compared to solid wood, like shear parallel or perpendicular to ‘grain’ direction of loading, but I would say that those issues are generally minor concerns in furniture. Resistance to bending is much more important.
There’s an online calculator (<– link) available for determining the sag of various shelving materials, and I invite you to take a gander. Comparing apples to apples, I input data for a 3/4" Fir Plywood shelf, 36" long and 10" wide, with either a balanced load or an unbalanced load, and compared the resulting deflection to solid 3/4" Douglas Fir (coastal) – the plywood deflection was 50% greater than the solid wood. A common way to stiffen up a plywood shelf? Adding a solid wood edging.
More to the point though is that if I wanted to build a stiffer shelf, in plywood I am left with laminating more plywood layers together, to build up, say, a 1.5″ thick shelf from two 3/4″ sheets, or constructing a torsion box arrangement using thinner plywood; both are solutions which result in a thick wooden shelf and that takes away from the available storage space in the unit and suffers an aesthetic penalty in many instances. Of course, I could also apply metal angle iron reinforcement and so forth as well, but that is a proof positive that plywood is insufficient to the task. In solid wood, if I need stiffer shelves I simply move to a species which is inherently stiffer, like Oak, Maple, Goncalo Alves, Purpleheart, etc..
Sag is of course an issue with solid wood as well. I have an inexpensive bookcase (on loan from my mother in law) in my living room about 36″ wide made of 3/4″ Pine, and the shelves sag slightly from the books. Pine shelves and a 36″ span do not combine especially well – if it were 18″ or 24″ wide, then things would probably be fine. When I made myself a bookcase, 30″ wide, I made the shelves out of cherry and there is zero sag when loaded with books. With plywood you don’t have that option of changing materials (though there are pricey ‘aircraft’ plywoods which are stiffer), as the interior constituents of plywood are often not especially different from one another. You can get more layers or fewer, but all of the layers are still generally a softwood – or worse. One cannot readily obtain, say, 3/4″ plywood in which any/all the interior laminae are composed of a stiffer wood, like Maple or Oak. When you buy ‘oak’ or ‘maple’ plywood, the only place the oak or maple is found is on the wafer thin exterior faces. It’s really a softwood ply.
Now of course, while I can readily switch from a fir/pine bookshelf to a bookshelf made from a stiffer wood, there is often a price penalty to be incurred for that. But at least you know what you’re getting. With the veneered plywood shelf, one could pay vastly greater sums for having East Indian Rosewood veneered shelves, but underneath it all, you still have the same fundamental reality – it’s a plywood shelf. It’s not going to perform significantly better than the fir-faced plywood shelf.
Adams asserts in his article, in a section entitled, Why Veneer Survives – and Thrives, that veneers are,
“…as a material, green by design – it’s durable, renewable, and sustainable.“
I was somewhat astonished to read that, however I thought I would read on to see how he comes to this conclusion. Well, he doesn’t really back those statements up, however I can surmise that a part of this boils down to the apparent economics – you get more yield of veneer from a given stick of wood, in terms of square footage that can be covered, than you do when sawing boards out of that same log. The argument for economy in other words. Economy of materials is ‘efficient’ and leads to a less expensive product while multiplying the profit ($$$) one can obtain from a given log. Perhaps that best explains why veneer thrives these days, the good old profit motive?
There’s a slight problem though with the economy argument however, and a problem which directly affects the ‘green’ picture and the ‘sustainability’ of veneer. I’ll look that matter in the next post.
Thanks for dropping by the Carpentry Way today.
hah touchy. i love veneer work and find the best pieces are often veneered. that being said, im talking about shop sawn veneer, so a heavy 1/16th thick, which is what i do. working with it is a pleasure compared to micro thin commercial veneer, i dont understand how people are able to work with it. with the shop sawn stuff its like solid wood almost, i joint the leaves together, glue them. hand plane the surfaces and the panels absorb more finish cause its way thicker than the commercial stuff.
i think baltic birch ply from russia is still great stuff, though the sheets on the top of the stack are seldom flat. i HATE MDF. ive just been cutting it up for jigs and bending forms, but other than that, i avoid it like the plague. as for the ply-core, i always wrap the edges in poplar before veneering so i can handplane solid wood instead of plywood, one also gets a better edge gluing surface using these “bake-ins” as the Krenov nuts call them.
but veneer work is very rigid, not a lot of room for error and it takes a whole lot of time before the panels end up looking like anything. solid wood is much freer in the sense that if you mess something up, the piece can get a little smaller…
but thats just me
Chris,
What I hear is an argument against plywood, not and argument against veneer. Long before commercial plywood, quality furniture was made with veneers over solid wood panels. I don't have a problem with that type of veneer work, but making things from plywood does NOT capture my imagination. (Even though I do it every day to make a living.)
Peace,
Harlan Barnhart
Nick,
well, I find the 'best' pieces are never veneered, and I intend to expand upon that in a follow-up post. That said, there are many beautiful pieces employing veneered construction – Jacques Ruhlmann's pieces from the 1920's being the finest examples I can think of. Even those, however, suffer in certain respect due to the veneering, and it is another example of using veneer as if one is using paint.
The Shop sawing of your own veneer is fine by me – I'm addressing the article by Adams, which is all about the commercially-available stuff – unless I overlooked something.
Harlan,
I think one obvious issue with veneering over solid cores is that of dissimilar wood movement, though one could conquer that with epoxy. Also, factoring in cost/convenience/profit margin, there has been a wide scale adoption of plywood and particle board cores. It's certainly achievable to do it successfully with solid cores, but they have very much fallen out of favor, from what I gather, among those who veneer.
I'm with you on not having my imagination captivated by plywood, though I recognize its advantages in many situations.
~Chris
Hello,
I skimmed the article from the magazine until it was clear what the reference to veneer meant. There are parallels between veneering with the thin stuff and more substantial veneers but I wouldn't draw a comparison and not that you have either but it's not clear to me just what you mean by veneering. Could it be something like; thin veneer bad, thick veneer good? A posture I subscribe to myself, if I may say so.
Greetings,
Don Wagstaff
No, Don, it's death to all words beginning with the letter 'V'. I think it's time we all took a stand.
Joking aside, I'll clarify my position in the next post in this thread. As I said in my previous comment reply, I'm responding to the article and its contents.
~C
Hi Chris –
As always, another thought provoking post. However, I do think it is somewhat unfair to dismiss an entire specialty in woodworking, in this case using veneer as inferior, just as it would be unfair to dismiss those who specialize in hand-cut Asian joinery techniques and eschew the use of glue and mechanical fasteners. To quote D.H. Lawrence “Different people, different ways”.
In the spirit of fairness, I must disclose that I know Marc Adams personally, have actually taken a number of classes at his school and consider him a dear friend who has been most instrumental in my development as a furniture maker. You would be hard pressed [pun intended ;-)] to meet a kinder, more genuine/generous person anywhere – in no way resembling the ogre portrayed in your blog entry.
As in any endeavor in life, there is both the good and the bad … a “right” way to do something and a “wrong” way. I will be the first to acknowledge that there is a lot of bad veneer work out there – poorly constructed pieces made with little respect for the material or customer, improper adhesives that fail, etc. On the other hand, there is also some spectacular, well-built veneered pieces being made, such as the work by Frank Pollaro (http://www.pollaro.com), W. Patrick Edwards (http://www.wpatrickedwards.com), or Michael Fortune (http://www.michaelfortune.com). Would some these pieces survive a hurricane or flood like Katrina that hit New Orleans … probably not … but I also doubt that many solid wood pieces would fare much better given the vagaries of wood movement when such a piece is subjected to extreme moisture conditions outside the intended use environment.
Veneer has a place, particularly when trying to conserve a rare, limited resource – in this case a finite supply of a particular wood with a unique characteristic, be it grain, color, figure, rarity or a combination of any/all of the above. Making the most of these limited resources was the ‘green’ point I believe Mr. Adams was trying to make. I also support Nick B’s comments defending the use of shop sawn veneer. I have recently used such material and find it to be quite liberating – permitting designs/construction flexibility that solid wood would never allow, but quite capable to withstand the test of time.
With that said, I too have some criticisms for today’s veneer/plywood suppliers. When you purchase a sheet of premium cabinet grade veneer core plywood, one should not be able to see the core telegraphing thru the face veneer because it is so thin as to be virtually transparent. I would be the last person to begrudge another making a profit, but as a manufacturer, one has a responsibility to provide a product that is actually usable – plywood with .05” thick face veneer hardly meets this pre-requisite.
I could go on ad nauseum, but will step down from the soap box. Thanks for letting me share my $.02.
Best regards,
Matt
Matt,
thanks for your comment. I appreciate that you took the time to share.
I was struck by the bit where you wrote,
“…in no way resembling the ogre portrayed in your blog entry” (?!)
Now, where exactly in the blog did I characterize Mr. Adams in that manner? That's utter hyperbole on your part. I believe my characterization was, rather, along the lines of,
“While I respect the author's opinions…”
Further, your comment that I am being,
“…somewhat unfair to dismiss an entire specialty in woodworking, in this case using veneer as inferior, just as it would be unfair to dismiss those who specialize in hand-cut Asian joinery techniques and eschew the use of glue and mechanical fasteners.”
I don't think I have gotten to any point of 'dismissal' so far ; I stated I had a contrary opinion to the author of the article and wanted to share my reasons here on the blog. Making a reasoned argument, even one as clumsy as mine might turn out to be, is a far cry from 'dismissal', which implies giving no time to even examine the matter or hear a contrary view. I read Adam's article, and have looked at a lot of veneered pieces in my time, old and new.
If someone were to “dismiss those who specialize in hand-cut Asian joinery techniques and eschew the use of glue and mechanical fasteners,” then they would be making the mistake of attacking the messenger, not the message.
If someone doesn't like a particular woodworking technique for some reason or another, then I'm open to hearing about it. I haven't come across anyone, for that matter, arguing that Asian joinery or glue-less joinery, etc., is 'inferior' – inferior to what? – however I would be intrigued to read such a piece and would probably have some counterpoints to offer.
You're apparently conflating my blog entry, which is an analysis of a woodworking method, to some extent with a personal attack on an individual, which is hardly the case. Please re-read the blog again and try to identify any points of ad hominem in regards to Marc Adams or anyone else who practices veneering – you won't find anything.
I realize that when it involves a friend who you are close to, that the reading of a criticism which associates to an article they wrote might be a bit upsetting and one might tend to take things rather more personally. Please remember that the purpose of Mr. Adams article, from his side, was to argue a point of view, HIS point of view, and he chose to put the article out there in a very public forum. As far as that goes, if you want to swim in the lake, you're going to get wet. I am doing the same thing here on my blog and expose myself to the same arena of potential condemnation or approval. Veneering is a matter of debate and discussion, and nothing further. It's not personal.
~Chris
Chris,
An interesting and well-argued post as usual.
In my opinion anyone who wants to construct with plywood should familiarize himself with the construction principles used in the fiber reinforced composites industry. Those composites are usually constructed out of several layers of unidirectional fibers bound together with a resin. These indivudual layers are akin to the plies used in plywood in that they are very anisotropic and usually only exhibit significant stiffness and strength along the fiber direction. Such layers are then stacked and bonded in different orientations to create the required strength and stiffness with the minimum amount of material.
Of course for a bookshelf, which is either an end-supported beam or three-side supported plate depending on how it is attached to the case, traditional 0°/90° plywood is not optimal; as you point out the 90° layers contribute little to the overall strength and stiffness of the board when it is essentially used as a beam layed up on both ends. But if you were to take say two 0.1″ thick plies of suitable wood in the 0° direction (along the length of the board) and combine those with 0.5″ of end grain balsa core you would end up with a board which would be almost as stiff as a 0.75″ solid board of the same wood but significantly lighter. Of course that wouldn't matter much for a bookcase, but in a lot of constructions weight is important. In fact, Adriaan Beukers in his book lightness gives good arguments for using light-weight (or minimum energy) structures.