DECORATIVE MATCHING
Since certain types of veneer, like some burls and exotic species, are available only in small sizes, producing a sheet of veneer sufficiently large for your project will often involve joining several smaller pieces together, with some cutting and taping before glue-up. Whenever veneers are joined, you must pay attention to grain, figure and texture to avoid cluttered or haphazard patterns. But as shown below, veneers carefully matched with decorative effects in mind can yield results unmatched by wood in its natural state.
Veneer sheets that are intended to be matched should be cut from the same log in successive passes. The result is a series of sheets that are essentially identical. The type of match you achieve depends on both the figure and grain orientation of the veneer and the size of the finished pattern you intend to create.
Straight-grained woods, such as zebra - wood and sapele, for example, yield veneers that are excellent for diamond, reverse-diamond and herringbone patterns. Burl, crotch and stump veneers can be butt-and-book-matched into large, elaborate circular and oval patterns ideal for creating interesting tabletops.
Recognizing grain patterns suitable for decorative matching takes practice. You have to know what to look for: A little swirl at the edge of a sheet, for example, may yield a beautiful design. To get a quick idea of what an end-to - end or a diamond match would look like, place a mirror at a right angle to the surface of the veneer; use two mirrors set at 90° to each other to preview a butt-and - book-match. Once you have settled on your pattern, stack the sheets of veneer so that their grain is aligned, tape the edges and cut the pieces for the match.
|
|
|
|||
|
|||||
|
|
||||
