Draft_Furniture Essentials_SP_9-3-16- v.1

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Veneer Production

Sawn timber is typically sawn into 1” thick boards. The saw cuts a kerf between boards 1/4” thick that winds up as sawdust.

Plainsawn

Riftsawn

Quartersawn

Veneer is not cut from the log but sliced with a knife (like lunch meat) into 1/32” leaves or sheets. That produces 32 veneer surfaces for every 1 that is gotten from a board and with no wood wasted as sawdust another 8 sheets where the sawblade would have gone. That’s 40 surfaces of wood veneer for every 1 of solid wood. The slicing process is composed of several techniques: rotary slicing, quarter slicing, plain slicing, rift slicing and half round slicing. Depending on the species selected, the selected slicing technique will produce a very distinctive type of grain.