Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Veneer history ?
nhlett
>Does anyone know of a good site/book or have personal knowledge of the history of veneering?
Specifically, I am curious about how veneer was cut before the days of the the spiral slicer and how one would cut veneer without a bandsaw, tablesaw, etc. is there a practical limit to cutting veneer thiness by hand?
Peter
Re: Veneer history ?
joel
>Veneers were cut by hand using frame saws. Sometimes with multiple blades at the same time.
Typically they were a lot thicker than today but I saw a demo at Colonial Williamsburg where they were cutting a bunch at what looked like 1/16" each.
Re: Veneer history ?
Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia
>Victorian furniture (of English fabrication) that I have examined would suggest that 1/16" is closer to the norm though I have also seen later Victorian pieces (later than 1880) that were obviously of "factory" production (by the standards of the day) that used quite thin veneers of 1/32" or less. I have a sideboard of a dubious manufacturer of that type. It is not a great piece of furniture but I was particularly fond of drawers with waist moulding fronts at that time. I still like waist moulding drawers but I think that I have made better purchases!
Re: Veneer history ?
L. Hanson in N. Idaho
>I don't know much about the history of veneering, but I see the subject of old fashioned veneer saws come up every once in a while.
These are built kind of like a narrow throat frame saw, but the wood is built solid, and a bolt is used to tension the blade (or blades, as there can be several),
This illustration:
http://www.customwooddesigns.com/images/marquetry2.jpg
I'm told is "from Roubo's L'Art du menusier (the art of the joyner), hence the French appearance" - from a knowledgable source. That very old book is referenced as a source for info at the Williamsburg affair.
There's a discussion on these kinds of saws in the oldtools list at http://www.frontier.iarc.uaf.edu/~cswingle/archive/get.phtml?message_id=7070&submit_thread=1 if you are interested.
It would be neat to build one of these - and a bit of work to use them.
Re: Veneer history ?
Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod
>Manual of Wood Veneering by Wm Lincoln has a chapter on the history of veneer use.
Ed
Re: Veneer history ?
GolfSteve in Calgary
>There's a drawing of veneer being cut in the book "Marquetry" by Pierre Raymond. The drawing is also attributed to Roubo, and shows exactly the saw pictured in the previous post. The bench is kind of cool, being about knee height, about 4" thick and three feet long, with a very sturdy two-screw vice to hold the log.
Pierre says on page 75:
"Until the 19th century, veneer was held vertically in a vice, and was cut, sheet by sheet, by two workers using a large frame saw.
Specialized workers, who split the wood in the 18th century, were called 'scieurs a la preffe'. These workers modified their tools and ensured that the blade was very thin to minimise the amount of waste bewtween sheets, especially when cutting blocks of rare wood. This saw was called a 'scie a refendre le bois d'inde' or a 'scie a preffe'.
The sawywers did not trace guide lines onto the wood, but depended on an experienced eye. Despite their skill, there was always a slight irregularity in thickness of each sheet, which caused a certain roughness. Occasionally, this veneer was thick enough (3-5 mm, 0.118-0.197") for the cabinetmaker to plane the marquetry after it had been veneered into place by the marqueter. Most delicately-cut work, however, was composed of very thin veneer sheets (1-2 mm, 0.039-0.078")."
Interesting workbench *LINK*
GolfSteve in Calgary
>That linked picture in L. Harrison's message is from a pretty cool workbench design where the face vice is convertable from a face vice to a shoulder vice to a tail vice.
Cool vice design
Re: Interesting workbench
Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia
>That is a truly inspired piece of design! Damn, another possible option!!!
Re: Veneer history ?
nhlett
>Thanks to all who responded.
I am rather surprised that 1/16 can be accomplished by hand. You have given me exactly what I was looking for.
Peter
Re: Veneer history ?
Charlie
>I would aim for something a little thicker with the idea of hand planing the veneer down to a 16th or slightly less, if you've determined that you need a veneer that thin. Handsawn veneer will definitely need some smoothing before application.
Re: Veneer history ?
nhlett
>Thanks for the advice.
Peter